Health technology assessment focus of task group recommendations

A new Health Technology Strategy has been issued by a task group mandated at the 2003 First Ministers Meeting on health care to develop recommendations on how Canada can improve its assessment of health technology. The task group will now develop an implementation strategy before handing the recommendations over to a conference of DMs for the costing and sourcing of funds.

The rapidly evolving field of health technologies and the escalating costs associated with their implementation has made health technology assessment (HTA) an increasingly important function of government. Health technologies include information technology, medical devices and drugs, which cost governments billions of dollars annually.

The objective of the task group is to obtain a pan-Canadian consensus on what needs to be done to properly assess and manage health technologies and share that information among policy makers, health practitioners and researchers.

“Health technologies are escalating costs and are also our salvation. It’s a bit of both,” says Todd Herron, task force chair and ADM health accountability as well as chief information officer for Alberta’s ministry of health and wellness. “The more clarity we can put into the decision making process, the easier it is for companies to secure funding and remove a lot of the risk. It assists the buyer decision process.”

The task group has recommended that the Canadian Coordinating Office for Health Technology Assessment (CCOHTA) be given a broader mandate and effectively transformed into a national agency for HTA and renamed appropriately. The CCOHTA currently conducts about 50% of all Canadian HTA, with the remainder conducted by provincial organizations in Ontario, Alberta and Quebec.

CCOHTA would also coordinate and support another recommendation — the creation of a Health Technology Analysis Exchange to gather evidence and policy advice to support the needs of provinces and their stakeholders.

The task group is also calling on the creation of a forum to identify areas of common interest, share information, and identify policies for managing the implementation, use and decommissioning of health technologies. The forum would also be responsible for identifying opportunities for health innovation to support the health technology innovation agenda.

“We still have to figure out how big the forum should be and who gets invited. We have to find the right balance of representation across the whole spectrum from government to researchers and health practitioners,” says Herron. “This should help close the gaps (between the various communities) and align priorities.”

The final recommendation is for the creation of a field evaluation system to collect primary research data on new and experimental technologies. That could include randomized controlled clinical trials.

“This could be a great tool for CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research) to allow it to see the bigger picture,” says Herron.

Herron was selected to head the HTA task group which stems from one of four advisory committees which are jointly chaired by a federal representative and a lead province. Surprisingly, reaching common consensus among all participants has been relatively easy.

Herron says the forum should have its first meeting by June/05 while the exchange is already being conducted in a limited fashion by CCOHTA.

Now that the HTA committee has completed its report it is up to the provincial DMs to find common ground for implementation. The task group will now take on other issues, most likely in the information technology field.

R$