OBJECTIVES The aim of this study was to describe the Norwegian contribution to the broad picture of our international health technology assessment (HTA) history. METHODS A general examination of some pre-HTA activities, as consensus conferences, closer reading of all background papers to the establishment of an HTA agency in Norway, the ongoing activities of this agency, its evaluation, and i...

Introduction and objectives: Due to limited resources, health systems are increasingly looking to health technology assessment (HTA) as a tool to guide health policy decisions. There are a range of models used in HTAs across the European countries including the “relative effectiveness” followed by Germany and France, and the “cost/quality adjusted life year (QALY)” used in the UK. Pharmaceutica...

In this issue of the Journal, Panteli et al. (6) provide insight into the extent to which a gender-sensitive approach is adopted by sixty health technology assessment (HTA) agencies worldwide. Their findings should make all of us involved in the production of HTA take pause: less than a handful of the agency Web sites that were examined by Panteli's team made any mention of gender as an explici...

To the Editor: The writer raises some interesting points. It is evident the “health professional as patient” faces several challenges that are of a general nature and not specific to Health Technology Assessment processes. As she articulates, the “health professional as patient” may be faced with a range of responses including the assumption that the “patient” knows everything relevant to their...

Arterial hypertensions (HTA) of endocrine origin are a rare cause of hypertension; HTA overall prevalence don't exceed 4% of hypertensive patients. Research interest in endocrine HTA is due to the severity of some life-threatening, potentially curable and reversible forms of HTA. The aim of our study was to determine the clinical, paraclinical, etiological and therapeutic profile of secondary H...

BACKGROUND This study examines, as a part of the European Union funded Adopting Hospital Based Health Technology Assessment (AdHopHTA) project, the results and barriers of collaboration between Finnish hospitals and the national health technology assessment (HTA) agency, Finohta. A joint collaborative HTA program has existed since 2006 between the Finnish hospitals and the national agency. ME...

The demographic and epidemiological transitions tend to increase the role of hospitals in medical care. Within such organizations, effective, safe, and cost-effective health technologies ensure better quality of care and increase users' survival, thus emphasizing the importance of evaluation of such hospital-based technologies. This article aims to present a model for the evaluation and incorpo...

From the conception of HTA in the 1970s it has been argued that addressing ethical issues is an element of HTA, and many methods for integrating ethics in HTA have become available. However, despite almost 40 years with repeated intentions, only few HTA reports include ethical analysis. Why is this so? How come, ethics is a constituent part of HTA, there are many methods available, but ethics i...

Countries in the Balkan region use pharmaco-economic data for decisions about the inclusion of new pharmaceuticals into their positive drug lists, but no predefined frameworks are used and resources for health technology assessment (HTA) are limited. The goal of this analysis is to investigate into possible development directions for the HTA system in the region, and provide some practical reco...