The future of Health Technology Assessment in Europe

Description:
Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a rapidly evolving process that informs decisions about the benefits, risks, and costs of mainly new technologies, interventions and practices. Over the past 20 years, many European countries have started to use it, though usually to serve fairly narrow objectives. But HTA is developing rapidly, and considerable experience on good and less good practice is now available.

How to cite:
Panos Kanavos, Ulf Persson and Michael Drummond. London School of Economics
Presented at ‘Securing Europe’s Healthcare Future’ conference Prague, February 18th, 2009

This report discusses these experiences and considers the future of HTA in Europe. It also looks  at ways of improving international collaboration. The emphasis is on those HTA activities related to decisions on allocating resources, and on the relationship between the HTA and subsequent decision-making. The report considers four broad themes:
• The structure of HTA activities;
• Methods of HTA;
• Processes for the conduct of HTA; and
• Use of HTA in decision-making.

The growing use of HTA provides a greater opportunity to compare and contrast the various approaches and define best practice. Agreement on best practice is important because HTA is  increasingly a fundamental part of the way organisations decide on which health technologies  they will reimburse. The report proposes 15 principles and identifies seven important issues for the future. It also considers the key challenges to standardizing HTA in Europe.

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