EUnetHTA - European network for Health Technology Assessment

Duration: 2006-2008/ 2009/ JA1: 2010-2012/ JA2: 2012-2015/ JA3: 6/2016-5/2021

Publications: Available at EUnetHTA website – http://www.eunethta.eu

Background:
In the Europe-wide assessment of pharmaceuticals and medical technologies, redundancies often occur due to simultaneous information needs from national decision makers. To facilitate a more efficient approach, a transnational harmonisation of methods and tools for assessment production (e.g., procedure manuals, standardised assessment templates) and the development of a shared infrastructure (e.g., a project database, communication tools) as well as shared quality standards are necessary. Since 2006, the EU project EUnetHTA aims at sustainably stimulating European collaboration and international information transfer in the field of HTA: in one EU project (EUnetHTA 2006-2008) and 2 Joint Actions (Joint Action 2010-2012 und Joint Action 2 2012-2015) involving around 70 HTA organisations from EU and EFTA countries, processes and tools to reduce redundancies in EU-wide HTA production were developed.

Aims and Methods:
The aim of the last Joint Action, Joint Action 3 is to strengthen the voluntary cooperation between European HTA bodies so that the model for joint work can be continued after the end of Joint Action 3. The objective is to develop a strategy for a permanent and sustainable European network of HTA organisations that provides objective, reliable, timely and comparable information to national decision makers in the Member States. To reduce redundancies in assessment production, the use, quality and efficiency of joint HTA work at European level should be increased.

The LBI-HTA/ AIHTA (within Work Package 4) is responsible for the coordination and management of jointly produced health technology assessments of other technologies (non-pharmaceutical technologies). Besides, production processes piloted in Joint Action 2 will be refined and new processes, e.g. for optimised topic selection and patient involvement, will be developed.

Results:
In Joint Action 3 a total of 40 joint or collaborative assessments of pharmaceuticals and other technologies will be produced in European collaboration using consistent methods and templates; these assessments will be subsequently used for the production of national reports. The LBI-HTA/ AIHTA also coordinates and supervises the so called Activity Centres in WP4, i.e. national HTA institutes, that regularly manage assessment of other technologies. By the use of sustainable processes for topic selection (selection and prioritization by a pool of HTA organisations or based on national work programs) the relevance of European assessments for national decision makers will be ensured.

The Planned and Ongoing Projects (POP) database, developed in 2011, is still being managed by AIHTA and is available for EUnetHTA partners.

EUnetHTA website: http://www.eunethta.eu