International Development of HTA

Our Department has been an active partner in the international HTA community for years. 

The 18^th Conference of the International Society of Technology Assessment in Health Care (former ISTAHC, today HTAi [1]) was held in Berlin in June 2002 under the scientific direction and organisational oversight of Professor Busse.

Professor Busse chaired the working group on Best practice in undertaking and reporting HTA [2] within the European Collaboration for Health Technology Assessment (ECHTA/ECAHI, 1999-2001) [3], a network project aiming at developing HTA methodology and at disseminating the philosophy of evidence based decision making.

Our Department has contributed significantly to the European Network for HTA (EUnetHTA, 2006-2008 [4]), a project funded by the EU. One major output of this project was a study on the role of HTA in Europe [5], lead by our Dept. and produced in cooperation with the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies. Our staff was also actively involved in the development of the HTA Core Model [6] – a kind of methodological standards for the production of HTA – as well as in the development of an Adaptation Toolkit [7] – a tool to facilitate the use of HTA information across countries. The results of the EUnetHTA Project will be published in the International Journal for Health Technology Assessment in Health Care [8]. A permanent and sustainable network on HTA the EUnetHTA Collaboration is developing as a result of the project. 

In addition, our Department has been consulted by the WHO on issues several times regarding HTA.

Outputs of the international cooperation (selection):

• ISTAHC 2002 Scientific Programme
• Best Practice in undertaking and reporting HTA [9]
• The evidence basis of recommendations for decisions in public health (report to WHO) [10]
• Are disease management programmes (DMPs) effective in improving quality of care for people with chronic conditions? [11]
• HTA – an introduction to objectives, role of evidence and structure in Europe [12]
• Practical tools and methods for health technology assessment in Europe: Structures, methodologies, and tools developed by the European network for Health Technology Assessment, EUnetHTA [13]
• The HTA Core Model: A novel method for producing and reporting health technology assessments [14]
• HTA Core Model™ for Diagnostic Technologies 1.0r [15]
• HTA Core Model™ for Medical and Surgical Interventions 1.0r [16]
• How can the impact of HTA be enhanced? – Policy Brief for the Tallinn Conference on Health Systems [17]
• HTA and health policy-making in Europe – current status, challenges and potential [18]

For more information:

Research Field Health Technology Assessment [23]

HTA in Germany [24]