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Health care is a vital good for which there is an infinite demand. However, societal resources are finite and need to be distributed efficiently to avoid waste. Thus, the relative value of an intervention - cost compared to its effectiveness- needs to be taken into consideration when deciding which interventions to adopt. Cost-effectiveness analysis provides the crucial information which guides these decisions. As the field of medicine and indeed cardiology move forward with innovations which are effective but often expensive, it becomes imperative to employ these cost-effectiveness analytic tools, not with the intention of denying vital health services but to ascertain what the society willing to pay for.

Platelet functional testing has been available to clinicians for several decades. Despite certain limitations, it has proven useful in several arenas, including diagnosing bleeding disorders, assessment of platelet-derived hemostasis and for monitoring response to antiplatelet medication. Special attention has recently been paid to high residual platelet reactivity in patients undergoing percutaneous coronary interventions and being treated with antiplatelet medications, largely because of the increased risk of major cardiovascular events and stent thrombosis. In keeping with this, determining high residual platelet reactivity in patient appropriately taking aspirin and P2Y12 inhibitor therapy has focused attention on tests aimed at diagnosing poor antiplatelet, and specifically clopidogrel response. Based on this, attempts to predict and intervene on poor response and its potential outcomes are prominent in the current literature, with the assistance of both platelet functional analysis and genetic deter...