Details descriptions of the session:
Detailed guidance and tools have been produced over the past decade for developing priority-setting institutions in health, particularly using health technology assessment (HTA) as a core approach, and on measuring institutional progress to this effect. Setting priorities during emergencies, however, is an area that has received little explicit attention. The assumption that HTA as currently understood can also be used “as is” during emergency situations has been untested. Moreover, for countries in the process of developing their HTA institutions, the potential influence of emergencies as catalysts or stumbling blocks has not been explored.
This session aims to discuss these knowledge gaps. It will build on existing work (2020/2021 Health Technology Assessment and Health Benefit Package Survey and the Institutionalizing health technology assessment mechanisms: a how to guide) and provide new data from ongoing work on HTA capacity and development case-studies, as well as detailed thematic (vaccines) and regional experiences on the interaction of developing HTA systems with various types of emergencies. Facilitated discussion around these experiences will target consolidating insights and identifying priority areas for future guidance development.
Learning objectives and target audience:
The target audience consists of healthcare priority-setting practitioners, particularly in governments in low- and middle-income countries.
The session aims to:
- Synthesize what is currently known about how HTA systems have functioned and what provisions they currently have in place to operate during emergencies of various types.
- Illustrate thematic, regional and country experiences on the above, as well as gather further insights from the audience.
- Elicit attendees’ views on priority areas for developing or strengthening guidance for using and developing HTA in emergency situations.
Structure of presentation:
The session includes a series of presentations designed to stimulate discussion among attendees.
- Chair: Tessa Edejer, WHO
- Adrian Gheorghe/Altea Sitruk/Andrew Mirelman, WHO (10 mins): What we know about national HTA responses during Covid-19 and other emergencies: insights from a global survey and from country case-studies
- Raymond Hutubessy, WHO (10 mins): Prioritizing new medical products during emergencies: The case of Covid-19 vaccines
- TBC (10 mins): Transferability of HTA results to support priority-setting in emergencies in the Eastern Mediterranean Region
- TBC/Oresta Piniazhko, Ministry of Health of Ukraine (10 mins): HTA institutional development during conflict: the Ukrainian experience
- Small group discussion (15 mins): Breakout in two groups –
1) HTA institutional setup and development during crises; and
2) HTA methods during crises – for attendees to share their own experiences and considerations on these two topics. - Group reporting and moderated discussion (20 mins)
