ISPOR—the professional society for health economics and outcomes research—announced today the publication of the first report in 20 years to comprehensively synthesize good practices in health technology assessment (HTA)—intended to support population-based decision making for pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and other health technologies. The report, “Identifying the Need for Good Practices in Health Technology Assessment: Summary of the ISPOR HTA Council Working Group Report on Good Practices in HTA,” was published in the January 2019 issue of Value in Health.

The paper is the work of prominent experts in HTA who are members of the "Overview Of Good Practices For Synthesizing And Using Evidence In Healthcare Decision Making” Working Group of the ISPOR Health Technology Assessment Council. The authors point out that while most research articles on HTA focus on research methods, HTA is defined not by its methods but by its intent, which is to inform health care decision making. In keeping with this focus, the Working Group members have provided important guidance for practice. They framed their report around 4 primary themes: (1) defining the HTA process, (2) synthesizing evidence (assessment), (3) using evidence (contextualization), and (4) implementing and monitoring HTA.

The primary audience for this report are those who manage, design, or seek to improve HTA processes, although it is informative to a wider audience of patients, health-care providers, payers, academics, and industry stakeholders. Given the large scope of this work, the HTA Council Working Group created this overview report that included a summary of key references related to good practices in HTA. The report outlines where there appears to be guidance for good practices and where guidance is still emerging (or could not be identified) with a view to prioritizing next steps that may be taken by ISPOR and other interested parties.

“We identified 3 areas where few good practices in HTA have been developed or where there is no clear consensus,” noted author Don Husereau, MSc, BScPharm, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. “These areas include the structure/governance/organizational aspects of HTA, the deliberative processes and other methods for integrating social values in HTA, and measuring the impact of HTA. In my opinion, the area of integrating social values is the most important and underdeveloped aspect of HTA. HTA bodies have increasingly been exploring how to best integrate social values, particularly patient values, but many fall short of standards for deliberative processes that are fair and transparent.”