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: there is controversy over the potential benefits/harms of the usage of angiotensin-converting enzyme inhibitors (aceis) or angiotensin receptor blockers (arbs) as regards the postoperative mortality of coronary artery bypass grafting (cabg). this study investigates the correlation between the in-hospital mortality of cabg and the preoperative administration of acei/arb. methods: out...

the objective of this study was to diagnose integrative ecological health of an urban stream,which is located in the asian temperate region. the research approach was primarily based on the index ofbiological integrity (ibi) using fish assemblage and a qualitative habitat evaluation index (qhei). and these indexes were compared with long-term conventional chemical dataset during 1996-2005. for ...

Due to an identified need for formal assessment, a small team of librarians designed and administered a survey to gauge the quality of customer service at their academic health sciences library. Though results did not drive major changes to services, several important improvements were implemented and a process was established to serve as a foundation for future use. This article details the as...

One of the most controversial topics in the U.S. is the issue of accessibility to health services by U.S. residents. This issue is most critical to U.S. Hispanic residents living along the U.S.-Mexico border who have been identified as having low health standards and low socio-economic conditions when compared to the rest of the state and the country. The availability of lower cost health servi...

This paper considers the problems of finding measurements for the two major principles of primary health care (PHC), equity and participation. Although both are of equal importance, the authors concentrate on the assessment of participation. A methodology is put forward to define indicators for participation in health care programmes as how wide participation is on a continuum developed for eac...

Current general health belief measures that are used to assess health behaviors do not capture the full range of health beliefs present among Latinos. The purpose of this study was to develop a reliable and valid measure of Latino health beliefs, the Cultural Health Attributions Questionnaire (CHAQ). Three hundred forty participants were recruited in 2 metropolitan areas with large Latino popul...

Because medical technology is the most important controllable component of health spending growth, the success of strategies for limiting spending growth depends upon their impact on technology dissemination. Technology assessment is fundamental to any strategy for controlling the adoption of medical technologies. Cost-effectiveness analysis holds particular promise as a method for evaluating a...

Multiprofessional collaboration is key to delivering quality patient care. Many developments in health care such as supplementary prescribing or the single assessment process rely on the premise that such collaboration already exists. This article focuses on barriers to interprofessional collaboration and explores whether 'new ways of working' in health care can survive in an environment with a...