Course curriculum

This course teaches delegates to create interactive web applications for health economic models. Based on peer reviewed literature, it shows how to develop robust and fast decision models, and deploy shiny user-interfaces written in R. Follow at your own pace, with 12 months access to extensive course materials, code demos and exercises. See the free preview lessons below.

    1. Welcome

    2. Content overview

      FREE PREVIEW
    3. Code download

    4. Coursebook

    5. * Optional: Structure of the Code files

    6. Live code clinic times

    1. Background: Presentation

      FREE PREVIEW
    2. Background: Quiz

    3. Hello World: Presentation + Code

    4. Hello World: Exercise

    5. Our first 'proper' app

    6. Our first 'proper' app: Exercise

    7. Additional Resources

    8. Code clinic

    1. Content overview

      FREE PREVIEW
    2. Initialising the Model: Presentation

    3. Initialising the Model: Code Walkthrough

    4. Initialising the Model: Quiz

    5. Running the model - Presentation

    6. Matrix Multiplication Quiz

    7. Running the model - Code Walkthrough

    8. Running the model: Exercise

    9. Calculating Outcomes: Presentation

    10. Calculating Outcomes: Code Walkthrough

    11. Calculating Outcomes: Exercise

    12. * Optional: stm_solution_2 walkthrough

    13. * Optional: Refactoring the model

    14. Running Probabilistic Analysis

    15. Running PSA: Quiz

    16. Additional Resources

    17. Code clinic

    1. Content Overview

      FREE PREVIEW
    2. Background

    3. Wrapper function: Code Walkthrough

    4. Wrapper function: Exercise

    5. Integrating the model into shiny: Presentation

    6. Integrating the model into shiny: Code Walkthrough

    7. Integrating the model into shiny: Exercise

    8. Deploying the app online: Walkthrough

    9. Deploying the app online: Quiz

    10. Deploying the app online: Exercise

    11. Additional Resources

    12. Code clinic

    1. Content overview

      FREE PREVIEW
    2. Reactivity & Observers: Presentation

    3. Reactivity & Observers: Code

    4. Reactivity & Observers: Quiz

    5. Basic UI Layout: Present + Code

    6. Images: Present + Code

    7. Downloading data: Present + Code

      FREE PREVIEW
    8. Downloading Data: Exercise

    9. Uploading data: Present + Code

    10. Uploading data: Exercise

    11. Downloading plots: Present + Code

    12. Downloading plots: Exercise

    13. Custom CSS styling: Present + Code

    14. Additional Materials

    15. Code clinic

    1. Content Overview

      FREE PREVIEW
    2. Contents table

    3. * Optional: How to make the most of the code clinics

      FREE PREVIEW
    4. * Optional: Excel vs R overview

    5. * Optional: Time dependent state transitions

      FREE PREVIEW
    6. * Optional: Transition Costs & Rewards (events)

    7. * Optional: Tunnel States

    8. * Optional: Text aesthetics in shiny

    9. * Optional: Validation

    10. *Optional: Expert Elicitation Example

    11. * Optional: Clickable Plots

    12. * Optional: Disable Button

    13. * Optional: Authentication

    14. * Optional: Notifications

    15. * Optional: Conditional UI

About this course

  • 5.5 hours of video content
  • Online Coursebook
  • Extensive code repository
  • 4 x 1 hour live code clinics


Live code clinics

Our live code clinics for this session of the course will be run at the following times. Course materials are available immediately.

  • 5th February 2025: 1-2pm London (8-9am New York; 5-6pm Dubai)

  • 12th February 2025: 1-2pm London (8-9am New York; 5-6pm Dubai)

  • 19th February 2025: 1-2pm London (8-9am New York; 5-6pm Dubai)

  • 26th February 2025: 1-2pm London (8-9am New York; 5-6pm Dubai)



Instructors

Robert Smith, PhD

Dark Peak Analytics | University of Sheffield

Rob is an expert in the use of R for health economic modelling. He has previously worked at the UK Joint Biosecurity Centre, the UK Health Security Agency, the World Health Organization and The University of Sheffield. He has consulted for a wide range of organisations including top 10 pharmaceutical companies, national health ministries and HTA bodies. He is a keen proponent of the use of R for HTA; serving as co-director of the international R-HTA consortium and the World Health Organisation’s Health Economic Assessment Tool Expert Advisory Group.

Dr Paul Schneider, PhD

Dark Peak Analytics | University of Sheffield

Paul is an expert in the development of software for HEOR. A medical doctor and epidemiologist by training, he has used R on various research projects, ranging from the modelling costs of breast cancer, and value of information analyses, to the monitoring of influenza in real-time using online data. He is a keen advocate of open science practices and has published several open-source papers with Rob on the use of shiny and R for health economic evaluation.

Wael Mohammed, MSc

Dark Peak Analytics | University of Sheffield

Wael has a background in pharmacy and public health. He is an expert in decision-analytic modelling, econometrics, and data science (especially in R). His PhD is in calibration methods for health economic evaluation. He has previously held positions at, NICE, the Department for Health and Social Care and the University of Sheffield.


Testimonials

Feedback from previous courses

“This course is a great resource for creating interactive decision models using R and shiny. It offered the team a great mix of presentations and hands-on exercises, with clear code walkthroughs that are perfect for both beginners and experienced modelers.”

Professor Ed Wilson, PenTAG (University of Exeter)

“The R Shiny course was really useful for our team and catered well for attendees at all skill levels. We all left considerably more confident about building Shiny applications for decision models in R. Having the codebase and coursebook to keep after the course was invaluable as this allowed us to continue to build on the skills we learnt on the day.”

Dawn Lee, Associate Professor, PenTAG, University of Exeter

“The course was great! The slides and explanations were clear. The exercises with solutions were really helpful, and loads of example code were made available. Having access to the recordings and the online book made the whole learning experience easier. ”

Dr Rami Cosulich, University of Sheffield

“This course was the best training I’ve attended. It covered many areas essential to understanding the content, including how to structure your model, vectorization, a variety of needed commands and their efficiency, creating custom functions, combining functions to create a model, plotting data, and so much more.”

Aaron Winn, Associate Professor, University of Illinois

“This course provides an excellent playground with a variety of hands-on R material to experimentally improve my/your health economic modelling in R (Shiny).”

Sietse van Mossel, University of Twente

“The Dark Peak Analytics team is second to none. Very helpful, insightful, and friendly. Would highly recommend to anyone wanting to advance their HEOR skillsets in R. ”

Michael Kim, Takeda/UIC

“The main tutor Rob was an excellent teacher, very knowledgeable and explains things very clearly at a good pace. The course material and resources were also excellent. As a beginner, I found the approach of teaching base R before learning package functions much easier to grasp. I have been on previous R courses for beginners and left in a state of confusion. ”

Delegate from HEOR consultancy

“Really accessible, loved the content with practice questions. This made it far less daunting for a complete beginner like myself.”

Delegate from NHS Scotland

“The course delivery has been great! I particularly appreciate the live and updated content and the accompanying coursebook.”

Delegate from GSK

“The format worked well (mix of taught sessions and code clinics), tutors were all great and very knowledgeable and engaging. Really appreciated being able to get feedback on my code. I've come away feeling a lot more confident, and also of how much left I have to learn.”

Delegate from FTSE100 Pharma


What's included?




Book your place now

Choose between the **Live** course, with live sessions and the **Content Only** course without live sessions.

  • £895.00

    Commercial (Live)

    Book
  • £695.00

    Commercial (Content Only)

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  • £495.00

    Non-commercial (Live)

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  • £395.00

    Non-commercial (Content Only)

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Thank You

FAQ

  • Does the price include VAT? Will I get an invoice?

    Yes all prices provided are inclusive of VAT. You'll receive an invoice including VAT by email after booking.

  • How long will I have access to course materials for?

    For 12 months. Some of our materials are also downloadable, so you can still refer to them after that period.

  • When are the course materials made available?

    Course materials are provided one month prior to the first code clinic, allowing plenty of time to access the materials prior to the live sessions.

  • What software do I need on my computer?

    To run the code provided, we recommend delegates have R Version 4.0.2 (2020-06-22) or newer, and RStudio (https://www.rstudio.com/products/rstudio/download/)

  • I want something more bespoke, do you teach other courses?

    Yes, we teach bespoke courses on a range of other topics in addition to teaching these topics in live sessions within Industry, Universities and Government.

  • Can I send questions via email if I can't attend a code clinic?

    Yes, we will respond to questions sent via email or on the dedicated discussions board of the course platform.

  • Do you provide discounts for LMIC?

    Those from LMIC should book using the 'Public Sector' price. If this is not possible please feel free to contact us directly.

  • What kinds of questions can I ask in the code clinic?

    Anything you like. We will prioritise questions about the course materials, but feel free to bring any other challenges you are facing (related to R or Health Economics).

  • Can I book for a large group? Do you offer discounts for large groups?

    It is possible to book for others using a 'gift' purchase. We do offer discounts for large group bookings, please contact us to get a booking link.