A Quality-Adjusted Life Year (QALY) represents one year of life lived in perfect health. It is a metric used to evaluate the value of health outcomes resulting from medical interventions. A value of 1 represents perfect health for one year, while 0 represents death. Values between 0 and 1 represent states of less-than-perfect health. For example, living one year with a health condition that reduces quality of life to 0.5 would be equivalent to 0.5 QALYs.
This metric is important in healthcare decision-making because it allows for the comparison of different treatments and interventions across a wide range of diseases and conditions. It helps to prioritize healthcare resources by identifying interventions that provide the greatest health benefit per unit of cost. The concept was developed to provide a standardized measure for assessing the impact of healthcare interventions on both the length and quality of life, offering a more comprehensive assessment than simply measuring survival rates.
