Ethics in HTA

The meeting was held virtually.

The meeting was held in person at the HTAi Annual Conference 2024

Co-chairs: Ken Bond and Dario Sacchini

Technical Officer (TO): Sylvia Nabukenya

Welcome remarks (co-chairs)

Minutes from previous Business Meetings

Outstanding items from February 2021 Business Meeting

Virtual Meeting summary

Next IGoE activities

Other Business

Date: June 28, 2021, at 6:30 a.m. MDT (UTC -6)

Co-chairs: Ken Bond and Dario Sacchini

Technical Officer (TO): Sylvia Nabukenya

• Welcome remarks (co-chairs)
• Proposal of prolongation of IG chairs mandate up to Manchester HTAi 2021Approval from HTAi (received from Lucy Henry and Leonor Varela-Lema)
  • Core member response (received approval)
  • Full member response
• Approval of minutes of HTAi IGoE Annual Business Meeting 2019 in Cologne, Germany
• HTAi IGoE Oslo Meeting summary
  • Updates on Competencies paper on for ethics in HTA led by Dario Sacchini and Pietro Refolo
  • Ethical relevance on disinvestment paper led by Wija Oortwijn, Ken Bond and Iñaki Gutiérrez-Ibarluzea
• Update from HTAi IG steering committee meetings held on May 28 and March 26. (Co-chairs represented the HTAi IGoE)
• Next HTAi IGoE activities for Manchester 2021
• Other business

Date: June 31, 2020, at 7:00 a.m. MDT (UTC -6)

Speakers:

The purpose of this Workshop was to offer an introduction to the role of ethics in HTA, as well as interactive discussion of challenging case studies. Indeed, the relevance of incorporating ethical analysis into HTA is increasingly acknowledged because many health technologies raise ethical, legal and social issues, and because HTA is an ‘evaluative process’ aimed at informing decision-makers about the value of health technology. The case study in this workshop was Uterine Transplantation (UTx).

Speakers:
Bart Bloemen
Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Pietro Refolo
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
Dario Sacchini
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Rome, Italy
Lars Sandman
Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden
Michal Stanak
NIHO, Bratislava, Slovakia

In this webinar the challenges and opportunities of being involved in conducting ethical analyses at HTA agencies were discussed. Three estinguished speakers presented examples of their work, and reflected upon the lessons they have learned with respect to being involved in ethical analyses in this context. These presentations were the basis and an invitation to the audience for exchanging ideas about how to advance this interesting area of HTA.

Speakers:
Bart Bloemen
Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
Renata Axler
CADTH, Canada
Lars Sandman
Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden

Speakers and topics:

Speakers and topics:
Facts and values, HTA and ethics: two cultures or two aspects of the same thing?
Wija Oortwijn

Methods for ethics in HTA
Bjorn Hofmann

Critical appraisal of relevant primary research
Ken Bond

Reporting on ethics in HTA: how to report methods, results and interpretation of ethical inquiry
Anna Stoklosa

The example of NIPD
Dario Sacchini and Tanja Krones

The workshop was organised by the INAHTA/HTAi Ethics Interest Subgroup.

During the two-day workshop the Socratic approach (axiological approach) used in HTA was compared with other approaches, assessing whether it is possible to elaborate a joint model in ethics in HTA. All participants contributed to the workshop, presenting their experiences with various approaches. Advantages, disadvantages and shortcomings of different methods, including the Socratic approach, capability approach, and the EUnetHTA Core model, have been revealed.

In addition, more general issues were discussed, such as whether social, ethical, legal, and cultural issues could or should be addressed by the same methodology, whether certain methods are more suitable for certain kinds of technologies or for particular kinds of HTA (assessment or appraisal), as well as whether ethics interferes with norms of policy making.

The outcomes of the workshop will be presented in two journal articles that are currently in preparation.

Participants
Sigrid Droste (IQWiG, Germany)
Bjørn Hofmann (NOKC, Norway)
Tanja Krones (Universitt Zrich, Switzerland)
Mirella Marlow (NICE, United Kingdom)
Wija Ortwijn (Ecorys, The Netherlands)
Dario Sacchini (Universit Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, Italy)
Irina Cleemput (Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre, Belgium)
Christa Harstall (Institute of Health Economics, Canada)
Ken Bond (Institute of Health Economics, Canada)
Flp Scheibler (IQWIG, Germany)
Alric Rther (IQWiG, Germany)
Sophie Werko (SBU, Sweden)