OBJECTIVES To provide an overview of the development of health technology assessment (HTA) in Germany since the 1990s. METHODS Analysis of key documents (e.g. literature, laws, and other official documentation) and personal experiences. RESULTS Health technology assessment (HTA) entered the political agenda in Germany only in the mid-1990s, basically as the result of a top-down approach tow...

PLAIN LANGUAGE SUMMARY Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is an evidence-based decision-making process, focusing on evaluating health technologies for funding within a healthcare system. 'Health technologies' include medications, medical devices, diagnostics, medical procedures and services. Health Technology Assessment international (HTAi) is a global society for those who produce, use, partic...

BACKGROUND Randomized controlled trials provide robust data on the efficacy of interventions rather than on effectiveness. Health technology assessment (HTA) agencies worldwide are thus exploring whether real-world data (RWD) may provide alternative sources of data on effectiveness of interventions. Presently, an overview of HTA agencies' policies for RWD use in relative effectiveness assessmen...

BACKGROUND Decision-analytic modelling (DAM) has become a widespread method in health technology assessments (HTA), but the extent to which modelling is used differs among international HTA institutions. In Germany, the use of DAM is optional within HTAs of the German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI). Our study examines the use of DAM in DIMDI HTA reports and its effec...

In 1989, Poland started to slowly release itself not only from the burden of a half-century of communist indoctrination and soviet exploitation, but also from the consequences of the Semashko model of healthcare organization: low doctors' salaries, primary care based on multispecialty groups, overdeveloped hospital infrastructure, and limited access to sophisticated interventions overcome by pa...

Independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) for Health Technology Assessment (HTA) are a key means by which national governments have responded to the challenge of ensuring equitable public access to a new range of medicines and treatment options within the context of limited national budgets for healthcare. In this paper, we apply a regulatory governance frame to the study of the Swedish process fo...

OBJECTIVES Assessment of ethical aspects of a technology is an important component of health technology assessment (HTA). Nevertheless, how the implementation of ethical assessment in HTA is to be organized and adapted to specific regulatory and organizational settings remains unclear. The objective of this study is to present a framework for systematic identification of ethical aspects of heal...

Health technology assessment (HTA) is a dynamic, rapidly evolving process, embracing different types of assessments that inform real-world decisions about the value (i.e., benefits, risks, and costs) of new and existing technologies. Historically, most HTA agencies have focused on producing high quality assessment reports that can be used by a range of decision makers. However, increasingly org...

OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to describe the history of health technology assessment (HTA) in France. METHODS The approach was a descriptive review done by people who have been very much involved in this history. RESULTS The interest in HTA and evaluation as a tool for health decision making goes back to the 1970s in France. During the 1980s, there were several attempts to develop a...

Conventional Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is usually conducted at a point in time at which the development of the respective technology may no longer be influenced. By this time developers and/or purchasers may have misinvested resources. Thus the demand for Technology Assessment (TA) which incorporates appropriate methods during early development stages of a technology becomes apparent. ...