Due to technical innovations and demographic changes, many industrialized countries are facing problems in financing health-care costs. One way to guide decision maker in Decision maker the allocation of their limited health-care budget is the use of economic evaluationEconomic evaluation . The economic evaluation of health technologiesHealth technologies is a special discipline of health economics, which compares the technical efficiency of technologies in the health-care sector. The term technologyTechnology covers everything from drugs to medical equipment to the design of intervention programs. Technical efficiency is achieved if with a minimum input (of resources) a given output is produced or if with a specific input a maximum of output (e.g., life years) is produced. Hence, technical efficiency considers both effectivenessEffectiveness and resourceResource utilization. Only an effective technology can be efficient. Typically, in economic evaluations the incremental cost-effectiveness ratio (ICER) of a technology is estimated. The ICER is a measure for the technical efficiency of a technology and can be expressed, for example, as € 30,000 per life year gained (LYG) or US $ 15,000 per quality-adjusted life year (QALY) gained, reflecting the net costs (costs minus savings) of gaining one life year or QALY, respectively.