ready4

library(ready4)

Motivation

Health economic models should ideally be both “living” (kept up to date) and “transferable” (easy to selectively modify for use in a new context) and applied in research that is reproducible. These goals can be hard to achieve in practice.

Implementation

The ready4 R library provides bare bones foundational elements of a prototype software framework to: (i) develop living and transferable health economic models; and (ii) apply those models to implement reproducible health economic analyses. The framework is extended by multiple other R packages - see the framework’s project website for details.

Use

For most users, the main applications of the ready4 library will be to:

• find themed collections of health economic model modules that have been developed with the ready4 framework;

• itemise available model modules and sub-modules and find examples of how to use them; and

• apply these modules to undertake health economic analyses using a simple and consistent syntax.

For the above purposes, the ready4 library will be typically used in conjunction with the ready4use and ready4show libraries.

For users with software development expertise, the ready4 library also provides:

• a template model module that facilitates modular implementations of health economic models using an object-oriented paradigm;

• a simple programming syntax to make available to end-users; and

• tools to partially automate the maintenance of an open source modelling project’s website.

Developers that wish to author health economic models as R libraries with ready4 may wish to consider using the ready4pack library. However, that library (along with its two primary dependencies ready4fun and ready4class) is not yet well documented and the ready4 framework remains a prototype. It is therefore recommended to first contact the package authors before undertaking R library development with ready4.

Further reading

• A pre-print manuscript discussing the need for health economic models to be transparent, reusable and updatable;

• An 2024 article in Pharmacoeconomics describing the ready4 prototype software framework;

• The ready4 prototype software framework website;

• The project website of the readyforwhatsnext model that is being developed with the ready4 software framework; and

• A pre-print manuscript describing a utility mapping study implemented with modules of the readyforwhatsnext model.