In the current pharmaceutical environment your work is of paramount importance. However, if it's communicated poorly, and those who need it can't use it, what value does it really have?

How do you make health economics understandable to clinicians?

Health economics and outcomes research are vital in product development, subsequent approval, marketing and eventual market share. Demonstrating the economic value of the product alongside its efficacy and safety has become one of the fundamental concerns of pharmaceutical companies. As a health economist or outcomes researcher, your findings need to be accessible so they can benefit a wider audience. Perhaps most of your previous research has been published in highly technical health economics journals; now, however, you are faced with making these complex concepts and outcomes readily understood by people who don't share your knowledge or mindset.

A simple checklist can help you make your research publications more accessible, and will enhance the chances of your manuscripts being published and understood by a clinical audience.

First ask “Who is this article aimed at?”

If it is aimed at a health economist audience, by all means explain and expand on the methodology: after all, this is the forum for technical discussion that gives you the chance to demonstrate the validity of your techniques. However, if your audience is made up of payers, remember that many of these people will not be trained in health economics. Thus, you should place your research in the context of the healthcare authorities who will be making decisions based on your information.

If your audience is composed of clinicians, remember that these people want to understand how your work will affect their clinical practice. If you're aiming at a primary care audience – for example GPs or nurses – make sure you explain how patient care should, or could, be improved by your findings.

You might wish to make a brief note of the key topics or issues that specifically interest your target audience, and make sure your writing addresses these topics.

Next ask “What are the key facts that non-economists need to understand?”

Always make sure that your data sources are clearly defined and that you have made it obvious why they have been selected for use. Explain any assumptions that have been made, and include a sensitivity analysis to show that your results are robust even when the assumptions alter. In your discussions, put your findings in the context of current care , practices, cost and cost-effectiveness; above all ensure that your conclusions are made in the context of your target audience.

If possible, leave out detailed explanations about health economics methodology that might cloud the issue or confuse the reader, ultimately detracting from your key messages. It is often preferable to write an initial methodology manuscript and direct this to a health economics journal if your work requires validation by your peers or is particularly complex . You can then always reference the methodology article in the one destined for the clinical audience.

Finally, read it again

By David Woods, editor

Before embarking upon this project we wanted to get a solid grip on the issues that keep you awake at night … and how we can help resolve them.

So we asked several US and UK health economists, and found that insomnia appears to be an occupational hazard on both sides of the Atlantic. Among the causes of this restlessness were, in no particular order:

• How to break down the firewall between health economists and marketing and sales.
• How to eliminate the perception that health economics is an inexact science … and merely designed to justify and fulfil marketing’s predetermined objectives.
• How to communicate what health economists do, simply and clearly, without giving away competitive intelligence.
• How to gather case histories about who succeeded in getting a product accepted – and who didn’t; and why – to formulate a commercial strategy.
• How to meet the challenge of developing a clear message in a variety of media for disparate audiences about the value and credibility of what health economists do.
• How to zero-in on those journals that best communicate health economics and outcomes information in a less ‘dismal science’ mode – more upbeat and proactive.
• How to disseminate health economists’ broader role in such areas as risk management, lifestyle, demographic, and technological factors affecting economic outcomes.
• How to establish a more collegial role with medical liaison and healthcare development people in persuading hospitals, pharmacists, and payers to include an approved drug in their formulary.
• How to prove efficacy and cost-effectiveness of a drug when many products are pretty much equal; the challenge of exploiting minimal differences, especially at a time when there’s a dearth of innovation in the pharma industry.
• How to delegate the simple aspects of health economics, and concentrate on the more complex facets.
• How health economists can educate themselves in global issues in healthcare.

Well, those are some of our findings; there were many others. Certainly enough to keep us busy … and to give you more than enough information and ideas – and concrete help – in communicating and validating your work. And, we hope, alleviating your nocturnal angst.

George Orwell, whose prose was spare and pure, offered six rules for effective writing:

• Never use a metaphor, simile, or other figure of speech which you are used to seeing in print.
• Never use a long word where a short one will do.
• If it is possible to cut a word out, always cut it out.
• Never use the passive [voice] where you can use the active.
• Never use a foreign phrase, a scientific word, or a jargon word if you can think of an everyday English equivalent.
• Break any of these rules sooner than say anything outright barbarous.

Politics and the English language, George Orwell, 1946

• The future of healthcare economics – and how you can shape it
  Editorial by David Woods
• Up against a firewall?
  How to break down the firewall between health economists and marketing and sales
• Watch your language
  Are you choosing the right words?