The main advantage of the versioning of PROSIT models is that any study or publication performed with a PROSIT model can easily be evaluated.
- It is custom for international peer-review publications in health-economics to provide information about patient characteristics and cost data. With this information and the correct downloaded model version any cost/effectiveness results should reproducable to readers and reviewers. This is a unique feature of the PROSIT Community models.
- Older publications can be assessed as all previous versions of a PROSIT model are available for download here. New models are cross-checked with older PROSIT model versions in order to see changes being introduced over time.
Here is the systematic behind the versioning:
The full name of a model:
Example official name:
"PROSIT Nephropathy Type 2 Diabetes Disease Model 2008A Romania"
Example short name:
"Danube 0.9A Germany"
River names: are the code names or nick names for models with a defined structure. "Danube" is the first code name as from the very beginning a German and a Romanian country version exist. Two countries laying "on the shores" of river Danube. Thus river names are getting an official status. River names are therefore only assigned by the forum administrators Wendelin Schramm and Christian Weber.
Capital letters: The current nephropathy model is called "Danube A" in order to specify that a defined set of transition probabilities has been used within the defined "Danube" model structure. If a new model uses the same model structure, but new algorithms, than a new capital letter will be assigned ("Danube B", "Danube C", etc.). These capital letters are getting an official status. Letters are therefore only assigned by the forum administrators Wendelin Schramm and Christian Weber.
Country versions: for use in different communities/countries the important mortality tables have to be replaced. Therefore a lot of country versions ot the model may exist. A country version is always labeled with the full country name (e.g. Romania, France, Austria, etc.).
Release versions: After reaching the 1.0 model version status, once a year an official release version is made public. These yearly releases carry the name of the year (e.g. 2008 will be the first official release).
Development versions: The PROSIT models are developed continuously. This means, development or interim versions of the model exist. These are labeled with numbers smaller than one (e.g. the current status is Danube A 0.9). Again these numbers are getting an official status. Version numbers are therefore only assigned by the forum administrators Wendelin Schramm and Christian Weber.
