OBJECTIVES Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is defined as a policy research approach that examines the short- and long-term social consequences of the application or use of technology. Internationally different institutions have translated this definition to local contexts. In Denmark, HTA is comprehensive with focus on four aspects of the problem in question (technology [clinical evidence], ...

Health technology assessment (HTA) has received increasing support over the past twenty years in both North America and Europe. The justification for this field of policy-oriented research is that evidence about the efficacy, safety, and cost-effectiveness of technology should contribute to decision and policy making. However, concerns about the ability of HTA producers to increase the use of t...

OBJECTIVES A mapping exercise was undertaken to determine how HTA is being described and conducted across the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA), with the aim of harmonizing terminologies and approaches. METHODS Three progressive surveys were undertaken. In 2010, INAHTA agencies were asked to provide details on all of their HTA products. In 2013, addit...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to review the history of health technology assessment (HTA) in Italy. METHODS Founded in 1978, the Italian National Health Service (NHS) has been strongly regionalized mainly after a constitutional reform, which started a devolution process. HTA started in the 1980s at the National Institute of Health and in a few University Hospitals, with a focus on big ...

We developed a novel Plasmodium falciparum genotyping strategy based on the heteroduplex tracking assay (HTA) method commonly used to genotype viruses. Because it can detect both sequence and size polymorphisms, we hypothesized that HTA is more sensitive than current methods. To test this hypothesis, we compared the ability of HTA and a nested polymerase chain reaction (PCR) to detect genetic d...

In response to the increasing demand for expansion of health technology assessment (HTA) methodology to include ethical issues more systematically, this document reports on a multi-stage study that aimed at construction of a new practical framework for integration of ethical issues in HTA. The document is divided into three major parts. The first part provides the results of a systematic review...

This volume, Value in Health Regional Issues (ViHRI) Volume 12, is the first Asia issue since our journal was awarded with a higher international journal standard by being indexed in MEDLINE/ PubMed. The achievement may not have been possible without the great contributions made by the authors of all of the previously published articles. This particular issue covers studies from the Asia-Pacifi...

This study presents a framework for the evaluation of open learning environments integrating methodologies both from Education and from Human Computer Interaction. This framework emphasize, the role of field studies using real students, the formation of hypotheses using qualitative methodologies to analyze the field data and task analytic methodologies namely: Hierarchical Task Analysis (HTA) a...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to describe the history and present situation with health technology assessment (HTA) in Israel. METHODS The method used in this study was a historical analysis based mainly on the knowledge of the authors, but supplemented by the published literature. RESULTS HTA originated in Israel as a centralized function conducted under the auspice of research, dev...