On Monday, May 3, IVI, along with Jessica Kennedy from Mental Health America and Mohannad Kusti from Pivot Onsite-Innovations, held an informational webinar on the draft model scope for IVIs’s upcoming economic model on major depressive disorder (MDD). To prime the pump for your own comments and feedback, we’re sharing some of the questions and answers from the discussion.
Please provide your recommendations and questions to IVI by May 14, either by submitting comments by email to public.comment@thevalueinitiative.org or by responding to the survey here.
Why did IVI choose MDD as its next open-source economic model?
IVI chose MDD as the disease state for the third Open-Source Value Project model mainly due to its prevalence, significant societal burden, and broad interest among multiple stakeholder groups (e.g., patients, employers) to seek better treatments and outcomes in an efficient manner.
Currently, the target population is treatment-naive adults (aged 18-64) diagnosed with major depressive disorder. What was the rationale for this population?
The current target population is based on input from the Advisory Group (AD) and the initial model scoping review.
- The MDD Advisory Group highlighted the need to model the entire treatment pathway once the patient is formally diagnosed, given the potential for delays in treatment.
- The initial version of the mode will focus on the population aged 18 to 64 partly due to the likely higher impacts on productivity.
While IVI had initially considered focusing on individuals with “treatment-resistant” depression, there is no consensus definition of it in the literature or in clinical practice. However, the flexibility of the model set-up will allow us to adapt it for other patient populations, which IVI intends to explore in future extensions. For example, the model will include the flexibility to evaluate outcomes for subgroups who have failed specific numbers (or types) of treatments.
How will you include sub-populations or people with co-occuring disorders?
We will explore the inclusion of subgroup analyses focusing on those with other comorbid conditions during the protocol development stage. Subject to data availability, we will aim to distinguish between MDD-related and other types of health care resource utilization.
What are some of the decision questions you are considering for the MCDA portion of the model?
The decision questions for the MCDA module to address will be informed by deliberations with our MCDA Expert Working Group and feedback from diverse stakeholders. As part of the public comment period, we welcome suggested decision questions for the MCDA module.
What type of feedback is IVI seeking during this public comment period?
Through the public comment period, we seek your feedback in three main areas:
- Assumptions and data elements missing from the initial model scope
- Patient-important factors most important to include in the model
- Specific use cases to be built into the first edition of the model
In keeping with its commitment to a transparent process, IVI is seeking feedback on model aspects such as how to incorporate patient-important inputs, how to evaluate both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical treatment sequences, and methods to explore the decision needs of key stakeholders not typically using such models, especially employers.
We invite you to submit additional questions to public.comment@thevalueinitiative.org. You can view webinar slides, hear the recording, and download the model scope here.
