BACKGROUND The literature suggests that research funding decisions may be influenced by criteria such as gender or institution of the principal investigator (PI). The aim of this study was to investigate the association between characteristics of funding applications and success when considered by a research funding board. METHODS We selected a retrospective cohort of 296 outline applications...

OBJECTIVES Health Technology Assessment (HTA) needs to address the challenges posed by high cost, effective technologies, expedited regulatory approaches, and the opportunities provided by collaborative real-world evaluation of technologies. The Health Technology Assessment International (HTAi) Policy Forum met to consider these issues and the implications for evidence production to inform HTA....

OBJECTIVES To describe the development of the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA) and its activities. METHODS Review of literature material and other documents produced by or relating to INAHTA. RESULTS INAHTA includes organizations that provide health technology assessment (HTA) advice to governments and receive most of their funding from public sour...

BACKGROUND Health technology assessment (HTA) has been continuously used for value-based healthcare decisions over the last decade. Healthcare databases represent an important source of information for HTA, which has seen a surge in use in Western countries. Although HTA agencies have been established in Asia-Pacific region, application and understanding of healthcare databases for HTA is rathe...

BACKGROUND Health technology assessment (HTA) is mostly used in the context of high- and middle-income countries. Many "resource-poor" settings, which have the greatest need for critical assessment of health technology, have a limited basis for making evidence-based choices. This can lead to inappropriate use of technologies, a problem that could be addressed by HTA that enables the efficient u...

The United States spends considerably more per capita on prescription drugs than other countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Drawing on the Intercontinental Medical Statistics Midas database, we examined the variation in drug prices among selected OECD countries in 2005, 2007, and 2010 to determine which country paid the highest prices for brand-name dru...

OBJECTIVES This study examines the content and role of ethical analysis in health technology assessment (HTA) and horizon scanning publications. It proposes that ethical analysis in HTA is of at least two different types: an ethics of HTA and an ethics in HTA. METHODS I examine the critical differences between these approaches through the examples of the analysis of genetic screening for brea...

Performing, writing, and publishing a systematic review take a long time. In a cohort of journalpublished systematic reviews, Cochrane reviews, and health technology assessment reports, the median time lag between the stated last search date and publication was 61 weeks (interquartile range, 33–87 weeks) [1]. In the same cohort of reviews, 7% were out of date at the time of publication [2]. Mor...