HTAi Review | May 12, 2023

Your biweekly news source for all things Health Technology Assessment international

Breaking News 

Public Health Interest Group calls for EOIs
Two Co-Chair Positions Available

The HTAi Public Health Interest Group (PHIG) is dedicated to the development and promotion of HTA methodologies, policy frameworks and case studies with a focus on public health interventions. 

PHIG is currently accepting Expressions of Interest from members who would like to take on the role of co-Chair. Two (2) positions are available. This is a unique opportunity to shape the direction of PHIG. Expressions of Interest will be accepted until May 28, 2023. Elections will run during the first half of June. All members of PHIG are entitled to nominate themselves and vote in the election. 

Learn about the roles and how to apply. 

*NEW!* Norman Swan to join HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting

We are thrilled to announce that Dr. Norman Swan, renowned Australian journalist and health expert, will be participating as a speaker in the HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting in Adelaide, Australia.

Dr. Norman Swan has dedicated his career to communicating important health information to the public, with a focus on evidence-based medicine and health care policy. He is the host of the award-winning radio program, The Health Report, on ABC Radio National, and also appears regularly on television programs such as 7.30 and Four Corners. 

As an HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting speaker, Dr. Norman Swan will be moderator to Plenary Three, Feasibility of Aligning Technology Evaluation Processes and Decision in an Era of Sustainable Development. He will also deliver a speech at the Annual Meeting Conference Dinner, a favourite event for Annual Meeting attendees.

Learn more about Dr. Norman Swan’s involvement in the 2023 Annual Meeting

More updates from the HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting 

The HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting is nearly one month away! There’s still time to register if you haven’t yet secured your pass. Regular registration rates currently apply.

The HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting will introduce hundreds of presentations over five days to promote the development, understanding, and use of HTA around the world as a means of fostering innovation and effective use of resources in health care. The presentations include a keynote and three plenaries that will explore various aspects of the event’s overall theme, the Road to Policy and Clinical Integration for health technologies. The Meeting will take place in Adelaide, Australia, from June 24 to 28, 2023.

Recent htai2023.org Additions

The 2023 Annual Meeting website is updated weekly with new information! Take a look at the latest updates:

Register for the Conference Dinner

The Conference Dinner is one of the Annual Meeting’s most popular networking events— tickets often sell out!

The 2023 Annual Meeting Conference Dinner will take  place on Tuesday, June 27, and will feature a special guest speaker, Dr. Norman Swan. Registration for the dinner is currently open, with increased seating capacity. If you would like to attend the Annual Meeting Conference Dinner, you can add your name to the waitlist through the Annual Meeting Registration link. 

2023 Annual Meeting Workshop Feature

The HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting offers a variety of workshops designed to share innovative experiences and practices, and to provide learning opportunities for participants. The half or full-day events include interactive activities and focus on developing participants’ skills. 

For the next few months, each issue of the HTAi Review will feature a workshop spotlight, aimed to help HTAi members learn about available opportunities. Registration is open for each of these workshops, which can be included as part of the Annual Meeting registration, or can be attended on their own. Learn more

WS14 – Engaging Stakeholders to Strengthen Health systems in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs) moving towards Universal Health Coverage

Date & Time: Sunday, June 25 | 8:30AM to 12:00PM
Presenters: Jani Mueller, Anke Peggy Holtorf, Lauren Pretorius, Marilia Mastrocolla de Almeida Cardoso
Summary: This co-creation workshop addresses current hurdles in LMICs with the aim to strengthen evidence-informed decision-making for achieving more sustainability and inclusiveness in health systems on the path to universal health coverage. The multi-stakeholder participants will spend exciting 3 hours designing together possible pathways to implement HTA processes that fit the context of LMICs.

WS15 – Values In Doing Assessments Of Healthcare Technologies (VALIDATE)

Date & Time: Sunday, June 25 | 8:30AM to 12:00PM
Presenters: Bart Bloemen, Carla Fernández Barceló, Pietro Refolo, Iñaki Gutiérrez Ibarluzea, Wija Oortwijn
Summary: HTA is widely seen as a specific type of policy-research. However, in its course of development it has failed to take account of crucially important insights from policy sciences. The VALIDATE (VALues In Doing Assessments of healthcare Technologies) approach aims to redress this and offers a framework for integrating stakeholder perspectives and ethical analysis

WS20 – All things publishing: submitting to HTAi’s journal (IJTAHC) – what’s your article type and hot topics in publishing

Date & Time: Sunday, June 25 | 13:00PM – 16:30PM
Presenters: Wendy Babidge, Wim Goettsch, Sophie Werkö, Tara Schuller
Summary: Join Editors of HTAi’s journal (IJTAHC) to update on key areas in publishing and submission of articles.
This session will comprise several short presentations, firstly highlighting the importance of IJTAHC to HTAi, describing article types for IJTAHC and other similar journals that will be followed by an interactive session where anonymized abstracts of articles will be reviewed by participants.

WS22 – The Design Of Health Technology Assessment Processes Using Evidence-informed Deliberative Processes In Low and Middle Income Countries

Date & Time: Sunday, June 25 | 13:00PM – 16:30PM
Presenters: Wija Oortwijn, Maarten Jansen, Maryam Huda, Lyazzat Kosherbayeva
Summary: On their path towards universal health coverage, governments need to make choices in the design of HTA processes which may be challenging in countries that have limited experience with HTA. This workshop provides practical guidance on how to make these choices, informed by the theory of evidence-informed deliberative processes, international best practices and practical examples from several middle-income countries.

Important Annual Meeting Dates:

    • Standard registration deadline: Thursday, June 15, 2023 at Midnight MDT (UTC-6) 
    • Last-minute registration: Friday, June 16 to Wednesday, June 28, 2023
    • HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting Workshops: June 24 – 25, 2023
    • HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting: June 24-28, 2023
The HTAi 2023 Annual Meeting is supported by:

A Look Back

  • The HTAi Asia Policy Forum held a Virtual Panel Discussion on Internship on May 12, 2023. The Discussion was held in partnership with HTAsiaLink, and explored how internship at HTA agencies, international organizations, and/or industry can improve capacity building efforts. 

Network News

The 76th World Health Assembly
The 76th World Health Assembly (WHA) will take place May 21-30, 2023, in Geneva, Switzerland. Elena Petelos, co-Chair of the RWE-AI Interest Group, will attend the WHA and provide a statement on behalf of HTAi. Learn more

International Scientific Congress hosted by Bellberry
Bellberry Ltd is celebrating 20 years of supporting research and ethics, and as part of this important work, we are hosting an International Scientific Congress in Adelaide on Friday 23 June 2023.

Entitled ‘Toward a Coordinated Approach for Managing Accelerated Patient Access to Promising Medicines’ this Congress will include a presentation of the issues and a discussion on the options for managing these challenges. Accelerated access and balancing the various stakeholder perspectives are important and growing issues in the global health sector.

A 2.5 day Workshop will be run prior to the Congress, where an international panel of experts will develop a proposed framework, with governance of this process provided by a Scientific Advisory Committee chaired by Professor Emeritus Lloyd Sansom AO.  Confirmed attendees include representatives from:

  • Australian Government Department of Health
  • CADTH – Canada’s Drug and Health Technology Agency  
  • EMA – European Medicines Agency
  • EUNetHTA – European Network of Health Technology Assessment
  • Health Canada
  • IQWIQ – Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care, Germany
  • Medicines Australia
  • NHMRC – National Health and Medical Research Council
  • NICE – National Institute for Health and Care Excellence
  • OHE – Office of Health Economics, UK
  • PBAC – Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee
  • PMDA – Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency, Japan
  • TGA – Therapeutic Goods Administration

More information is available here.

HB-HTA Interest Group Survey
The HB-HTA Interest Group of the HTAi (Health Technology Assessment International) launch a survey to define the current scenario of the Hospital-Based Health Technology Assessment (HB-HTA) at global level.  The aim is to collect data on current HB-HTA activities but also on the perception of the role, potentialities, and barriers for HB-HTA at the international level. Therefore, our survey’s recipients are both hospitals performing HTA (20-25 min survey), hospitals not performing HTA activities (10 min), and national or regional or local policy makers, HTA agencies included (10 min). 

To access to the survey click here. The survey is open to all, members and not members of HTAi. Please, provide your response by Monday May 15, 2023.

Results will be discussed during the HTAi Annual Meeting in June 2023 and published. We invite you to contribute to the survey and to share this initiative with your colleagues. 

If you need further information, please contact: [email protected] 

HTA News from Around the World

From the European Commission: The Regulation on health technology assessment (HTAR) tasked the European Commission to establish a stakeholder network through an open call for applications. Following the assessment of the received applications, the Commission selected 44 organisations as members of the HTA Stakeholder Network and 2 organisations as observers.  Read more

From AWTTC: The All Wales Therapeutics and Toxicology Centre (AWTTC) has updated its HTA methods and processes. Key changes include removing the end-of-life modifier and introducing a new ‘severity modifier’, described in AWMSG’s new ‘Policy for appraising medicines for severe conditions’.  Read more

From the WHO: The World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General concurs with the advice offered by the IHR (2005) Emergency Committee on the COVID-19 pandemic determining that COVID-19 is now an established and ongoing health issue which no longer constitutes a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC). Read more

From the Bulletin Board

If you have an open position you’d like to share with the HTAi membership, please contact [email protected].

IJTAHC Featured Publications

  • Economic evaluation and costs of remote patient monitoring for cardiovascular disease in the United States: a systematic review. Read more
  • Expanding health technology assessment towards broader value: Ireland as a case study. Read more
  • Involvement of information specialists and statisticians in systematic reviews. Read more

Important Upcoming Dates

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