Several decision-analytic modeling techniques are used today for informing health technology assessments (HTAs). These methods have been borrowed from other fields, in the absence of any health economic-specific tools, and consequently their application in our field often leads to oversimplification of the problem and/or loss of transparency. Discretely Integrated Condition Event (DICE) simulation is a novel and unifying approach specifically designed to meet HE modeling needs for accurate representation of HTA problems in a transparent and flexible way. Experience with DICE is growing rapidly as many companies are adopting it for their disease models, with applications spanning early decision analysis through formal health economic submissions.
The core components of DICE are events and conditions, which are integrated at discrete time points. This simple structure can be used to reflect any aspect of a disease and its management, including valuation (e.g., QALYs, costs) of key outcomes of interest. Therefore, its applications range from basic cost‐consequence and budget impact analyses to complex cost‐effectiveness and full disease simulations.
Evidera has developed EviDICE®, a user-friendly, transparent and validated Microsoft Excel-based platform for DICE applications. EviDICE provides an efficient and effective way to implement DICE using a wealth of built-in tools.
