Advancing and strengthening the methodological tools and practices relating to the application and implementation of Health Technology Assessment (HTA)

The use of HTA has increased recently in Europe and more widely (e.g. Americas) to enable evidence-based coverage decisions and improve efficiency in resource allocation.
HTA has often resulted in different coverage decisions across settings despite the same evidence being used for this purpose. This may reflect in part societal preferences about value, priorities or risk perceptions, suggesting a significant need for methodological improvements and extensions.
The fundamental objective of ADVANCE_HTA is to contribute to advancements in the methods for HTA in European and other settings by involving the wider stakeholder community in areas actively and heavily debated given their implications for decision-making and resource allocation, as follows:
First, the issue around value for money and the different approaches surrounding current thresholds for resource allocation;
Second, the concept of value assessment, and the factors that need to be considered beyond cost effectiveness, such as disease severity;
Third, to improve the quality of the evidence required for and the methods associated with the assessment of rare diseases;
Fourth, to advance the debate in the elicitation of preferences by deriving these in more realistic settings within the patient community in the wider EU;
Fifth, to advance the debate on the suitability of current HTA tools across different categories of medical devices (e.g. diagnostics);
Sixth, to improve the implementation and capacity building of HTA including outside Europe, where HTA is considered explicitly in decision-making.
ADVANCE_HTA aims to broaden the spectrum, complement and address areas of intense methodological debate in the application, use and implementation of HTA. It also aims to improve HTA methods, which can be taken further by competent authorities nationally whilst supplementing the work of supra-national bodies (e.g. EUnetHTA) towards a common understanding of choices in health care decision-making.