Health economists: Undertook a systematic review of the published economic literature. Undertook new cost-effectiveness analysis in priority areas. 4.4.1 Literature review The health economists: Identified potentially relevant studies for each review question from the health economic search results by reviewing titles and abstracts. Full papers were then obtained. Reviewed full papers against prespecified inclusion and exclusion criteria to identify relevant studies (see below for details). Critically appraised relevant studies using economic evaluations checklists as specified in the NICE Extracted key information about the studies methods and results into health economic evidence tables (included in appendix G). Generated summaries of the evidence in NICE health economic evidence profile tables (included in the relevant chapter for each review question) see below for details. 4.4.1.1 Inclusion and exclusion criteria Full economic evaluations (studies comparing costs and health consequences of alternative courses of action: cost utility, cost-effectiveness, cost benefit and cost consequences analyses) and comparative costing studies that addressed the review question in the relevant population were considered potentially includable as health economic evidence. Studies that only reported cost per hospital (not per patient), or only reported average cost effectiveness without disaggregated costs and effects were excluded. Literature reviews, abstracts, posters, letters, editorials, comment articles, unpublished studies and studies not in English were excluded. Studies published before 2001 and studies from non-OECD countries or the USA were also excluded, on the basis that the applicability of such studies to the present UK NHS context is likely to be too low for them to be helpful for decision-making. Remaining health economic studies were prioritised for inclusion based on their relative applicability to the development of this guideline and the study limitations. For example, if a high quality, directly Chronic Heart Failure Methods NICE 2018. All rights reserved. Subject to Notice of rights. 