Abstract
Title: Management of health technology assessment in foreign countries
Objective: The study aims to explore how the processes to assess the appropriateness of health technologies are managed and carried out in responsible organizations in other countries.
Methods: Literature search on MedLine, Google Scholar as well as institutes websites were employed in order to gather relevant information. The selection criteria were; (1) the institute must be the national representative and noncommercial institute (2) data must be able to retrieve via electronic database and (3) relevant information must be in English. Certain institutes with rich and
useful information were selected purposively. Content analysis of the documents was the major approach of this review.
Results: Health technology assessment institutes in 10 countries, namely England, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Denmark, the USA, Canada,Australia, Republic of Korea, and South Africa are included in this study. The review suggests that the processes undertaken in these organizations can be divided into 4 main steps: (1) The selection of health interventions to the assessment: Website is a common channel for topic submission. Eligible stakeholders to propose particular technologies comprise different parties namely including healthcare professionals, government bodies, health technology users and the public. The magnitude of health problems expressed in term of ็burden
of disease้ is the most widely-employed criteria. (2) Assessment and consultation: Once the topics are selected, groups of researchers will be assigned to conduct the assessment according to their expertise. The research team generally consists of members of the institute,s advisory committee and scientists from universities, research institutes and representatives of government agencies. (3) Approval of the evaluation results: consultations are convened to obtain comments and suggestions concerning the assessment results. This stage involves experts in relevant fields, health minister, and other key stakeholders in order to ensure the reliability and acceptability of the findings and policy recommendations. (4) The appeal procedure: Concerned parties are allowed to make appeal over the disagreeable assessment results. This procedure is available in some institutes with appraisal or policy decision authority. With regard to the good governance, it is argued that such an idea should be
incorporate in the management of health technology assessment, since the results of the assessments and relating policy recommendations are undeniably affect a wide range of actors in the health sector. Concerning issues include the potential implications for the access to healthcare, government’s budget as well as business’s profits.
