Health Technology Assessment (HTA): A Comprehensive Overview

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Health Technology Assessment (HTA): A Comprehensive Overview

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Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a systematic, multidimensional evaluation of the attributes, effects, and consequences of health technologies. Health Technologies include drugs, devices, procedures etc. HTA considers the medical, social, ethical, and economic components of these technologies and is designed to support decision-making around health policy and practice.

Examples include:

Medicines
Programmes to prevent ill-health (e.g. childhood vaccination programmes)
Procedures (such as surgeries)
Devices (equipment or machinery that deliver healthcare interventions or assist with activities of daily living, such as an insulin pump or an epinephrine auto-injector)

1. What is Health Technology Assessment?

HTA is a multidimensional process that systematically reviews the value of health technologies at different time, or ‘stages’, throughout their life cycle. The aim is to ensure that health technologies are used in ways that are equitable, efficient and improve the quality of the health system.

Health technologies are interventions designed to prevent, diagnose and treat medical conditions; promote health; provide rehabilitation; or arrange health delivery. These interventions can be tests, devices, medicines, vaccines, procedures, programs, or systems. [1]

2. Why is HTA important?

HTA is a process from different fields of expertise that employs explicit methods to assess the value, or utility, of a health technology at different stages of its life cycle. Its purpose is to inform decision making, to foster an equitable, efficient and high-quality health system. [1]

3. HTA Process

HTA process is a systematic, stepwise approach to evaluate health technologies throughout their lifecycle [2]

- Topic identification: Identifying the need for assessment based on new health technologies or interventions.
- Scoping: Identifying the scope and purpose of the assessment.
- Evidence collection: Collecting evidence from relevant clinical trials, economic evaluations, or other sources of information.
- Evidence synthesis: Synthesizing and analysing the collated evidence to develop conclusions.
- Assessment: Assessing the health technology based on criteria identified in step 2 (definition of the scope of assessment).
- Recommendations: Generating a recommendation for stakeholders regarding the adoption or rejection of a health technology.
- Dissemination: Sharing the findings with stakeholders to impact policy and practice.

4. Importance of HTA

By systematically evaluating health technologies, HTA ensures that interventions are effective, cost-efficient, and equitable. [3]

Informed Decisions: Provides evidence-based information to support decisions related to healthcare policies and practices.
Resource Allocation: Assists in determining the priority of healthcare interventions based on both effectiveness and costs.
Quality Improvement: Helps identify the best modes of delivery, as well as encourage the uptake of effective technologies.
Equity in Healthcare: Ensures that health technologies are accessible and benefit all sub populations.

5. Global Implementation

HTA has been adopted across the globe to assist with healthcare decision making. For example, the World Health Organization (WHO) conducts global surveys of HTA processes in member states and develops guidelines on HTA for health systems. [4]

6. Challenges in HTA

Data limitations: Poor-quality or inadequate data can limit access to accurate assessment.
Limitations of resources: Funding inadequacies and limited skills could limit the amount of HTA.
Engaging all stakeholders: Engaging all the stakeholders can be difficult to guarantee their inclusion.
Ethics: Engaging in discussion about the cost-effectiveness vs. the ethical aspects requires careful thinking.

Conclusion

Health Technology Assessment is an essential part of the evaluation process that supports evidence-based decision-making in health care. HTA provides important information about health technologies, which supports the systematic, efficient, and equitable delivery of health services.

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References

What is HTA? (n.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2025, from HTAi website: https://htai.org/what-is-hta/
(N.d.). Retrieved August 28, 2025, from Eupati.eu website: https://toolbox.eupati.eu/resources/health-technology-assessment-process-fundamentals/
Cheung, K. L., Evers, S. M. A. A., De Vries, H., Levy, P., Pokhrel, S., Jones, T., … Hiligsmann, M. (2018). Most important barriers and facilitators of HTA usage in decision-making in Europe. Expert Review of Pharmacoeconomics & Outcomes Research, 18(3), 297–304. https://doi.org/10.1080/14737167.2018.1421459
Mirelman, A. J., Goel, K., and Edejer, T. T.-T. (2025). The global landscape of country-level health technology assessment processes: A survey among 104 countries. Health Policy OPEN, 8(100138), 100138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.hpopen.2025.100138