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Governments are aware that ‘informed purchasing’is central to efforts to harness health expenditure growth and use available budgets more efficiently. Informed purchasing, however, requires reliable information on the costs and health outcomes of current practice and of options for change. Such information enables governments to:

• direct available resources towards best-practice cost-effective services;• modify not cost-effective services to improve their cost-effectiveness;• discontinue not cost-effective services that cannot be made more cost-effective or be justified on other compelling grounds; and

• target services to those in need, as opposed to people with low-risk profiles who are unlikely to benefit in a cost-effective manner.