Introduction

One of the fundamental roles of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is to determine the added therapeutic value (in terms of health outcomes for patients) of a new health technology in comparison to the current standard of care.

Health Technology Assessment (HTA ) is the systematic evaluation of properties, effects, and/or impacts of health technologies. It may address the direct, intended consequences of technologies as well as their indirect, unintended consequences.

The main purpose of HTA is to recommend technology-related policymaking in healthcare and thus, HTA is sometimes called ‘the bridge between evidence and policy making’. HTA is conducted by interdisciplinary groups (called ‘HTA bodies’) using explicit analytical frameworks, drawing from a variety of methods. As HTA bodies and processes and their integration within a healthcare system vary from country to country there is no common (harmonised) approach to HTA. However, in recent years the fundamentals of good HTA processes have become more standardised.