OBJECTIVES Although health technology assessment (HTA) has been well established in all developed countries, it has not found a firm footing in many developing countries. This is especially true of the Asia Pacific region, which has much of the world population. METHODS The beginnings of HTA in this region go back to the work of Dr. David Banta in China and the establishment of the Asian HTA ...

Lessons from health technology assessment (HTA) organizations around the world are emerging, and only some of them are about evidence. Other lessons pertain to governance, communication, trust, politics, and the persistence of local “practice patterns” for evidence evaluations. This should not come as a surprise. HTA organizations worldwide have different constituencies and organizational struc...

BACKGROUND Medical programmes that implement problem-based learning (PBL) face several challenges when introducing this innovative learning method. PBL relies on small group as the foundation of study, and tutors facilitate learning by guiding the process rather than teaching the group. One of the major challenges is the use of strategies to assess students working in small groups. Self-, peer-...

In Hungary, the history of the health technology assessment (HTA) dates back to 1993 when HTA and related activities started by professional initiatives. The legal background, institutionalization, and training capacities were created between 1998 and 2004. The main challenges for HTA in Hungary are partly similar to the ones in countries with a developed economy; no question it is time for cos...

BACKGROUND Adaptive mixed reality rehabilitation (AMRR) is a novel integration of motion capture technology and high-level media computing that provides precise kinematic measurements and engaging multimodal feedback for self-assessment during a therapeutic task. OBJECTIVE We describe the first proof-of-concept study to compare outcomes of AMRR and traditional upper-extremity physical therapy...

Introduction: Managing the acute admission of older patients is a challenge in hospitals. Frail older people represent a larger proportion of acute admissions. Length of inpatient stay, inpatient mortality and the 90-day readmission rate are significant in this group of patients. In order to reduce the risks of adverse outcomes, frailty should be screened using an appropriate assessment tool an...

Over the last years, health psychology has amounted impressive evidence that social factors play a critical role in primary and tertiary prevention. However, compared with other fields, it has somewhat lagged behind in implementing methodological advances that can considerably improve the sophistication of the assessment of such social factors. In essence, this article seeks to motivate readers...

This paper explores the idea that IT security risk assessment can be formalized as an argumentation game in which assessors argue about how the system can be attacked by a threat agent and defended by the assessors. A system architecture plus assumptions about the environment is specified as an ASPIC argumentation theory, and an argument game is defined for exchanging arguments between assessor...

The HAQ-II is a psychometrically improved 10-item version of the standard HAQ functional questionnaire. It is simpler and faster to administer and score, thereby reducing patient burden. HAQ-II is better correlated with clinical measures than the HAQ and is sensitive to change. The HAQ-II is suitable for use in the clinic and research studies.