valueassessment

Value assessment is the systematic evaluation of the value of an object, program, policy, project, or investment by considering multiple attributes such as costs, benefits, risks, and social impact. The aim is to inform decisions about prioritization, resource allocation, and strategic direction. Value assessment differs from simple cost accounting by seeking to integrate economic, technical, social, and ethical considerations.

Common methods include cost-effectiveness analysis, cost-utility analysis, and cost-benefit analysis, as well as multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) that can combine qualitative and quantitative criteria. Value assessment frameworks often specify a set of criteria such as effectiveness, efficiency, equity, feasibility, and risk.

Applications: In healthcare, value assessment is used to evaluate medical interventions for reimbursement and formulary decisions; in business, it informs capital budgeting and vendor selection; in public policy and environmental planning, it assists trade-offs among competing objectives.

Process: define objectives, identify criteria and stakeholders, collect data, score alternatives, aggregate results, and conduct sensitivity analyses. Transparency and documentation are emphasized to support review and reproducibility. Challenges include choosing criteria, measuring intangible benefits, data gaps, bias, and varying value judgments across stakeholders.

Related concepts include health technology assessment, cost-effectiveness analysis, MCDA, value proposition, and value-for-money. Critics caution that value assessment can overemphasize quantifiable metrics at the expense of ethical or equity concerns, and that results depend on methodological choices.