About the project
Complex health technologies are imperative for matching the rise in chronic diseases in ageing populations. Despite considerable achievements in recent years, contemporary health technology assessment (HTA) is currently sub-optimally equipped for the assessment of complex technologies. In order to achieve a more structured, transparent, comprehensive, patient-centred assessment of complex technologies (evidence-informed context based decision making), policy-makers need tools that bridge current methodological gaps to support their decision making.
Objectives
INTEGRATE-HTA aims to adapt and develop concepts and methods for HTA to enable an integrated assessment of issues of complex technologies as follows:
- Assessment of effectiveness and economic-, social-, cultural-, and ethical issues of complex technologies
- Assessment of patient preferences and patient-specific moderators of treatment
- Assessment of context, setting, and implementation
- Integrating all issues in a comprehensive patient-centred assessment
- Closing existing methodological gaps in the assessment of complex technologies
Palliative care will be used as a case study to test the methodology developed within the framework of the INTEGRATE-HTA project. Insights from the case study are subsequently used to refine the developed methodology and enhance its applicability to other complex technologies.
Publications
- Pfadenhauer et al. Context and implementation: A concept analysis towards conceptual maturity. Zeitschrift für Evidenz, Fortbildung und Qualität im Gesundheitswesen (In press)
- Hofmann et al. Integrating ethics in HTA: many ways to Rome. Accepted for publication in: International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care.
Financing
- EU FP7 (Grant agreement no 306141)
Cooperation
The INTEGRATE-HTA consortium consists of 7 partners from 5 different countries.
- University of Bremen, Germany (coodinator)
- Radboud University Medical Centre, Netherlands
- University of Sheffield, United Kingdom
- Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany
- Ecorys Nederland B.V., Netherlands
- Universita Cattolica del Sacro Cuore of Rome, Italy
Start - finish
January 2013 – December 2015