For the first time, a single reference identifies medical technology assessment programs. A valuable guide to the field, this directory contains more than 60 profiles of programs that conduct and report on medical technology assessments. Each profile includes a listing of report citations for that program, and all the reports are indexed under major subject headings. Also included is a cross-listing of technology assessment report citations arranged by type of technology headings, brief descriptions of approximately 70 information sources of potential interest to technology assessors, and addresses and descriptions of 70 organizations with memberships, activities, publications, and other functions relevant to the medical technology assessment community.

What information and decision-making processes determine how and whether an experimental medical technology becomes accepted and used? Adopting New Medical Technology reviews the strengths and weaknesses of present coverage and adoption practices, highlights opportunities for improving both the decision-making processes and the underlying information base, and considers approaches to instituting a much-needed increase in financial support for evaluative research. Essays explore the nature of technological change; the use of technology assessment in decisions by health care providers and federal, for-profit, and not-for-profit payers; the role of the courts in determining benefits coverage; strengthening the connections between evaluative research and coverage decision-making; manufacturers' responses to the increased demand for outcomes research; and the implications of health care reform for technology policy.

This is the first book to offer a comprehensive guide to involving patients in health technology assessment (HTA). Defining patient involvement as patient participation in the HTA process and research into patient aspects, this book includes detailed explanations of approaches to participation and research, as well as case studies. Patient Involvement in HTA enables researchers, postgraduate students, HTA professionals and experts in the HTA community to study these complementary ways of taking account of patients’ knowledge, experiences, needs and preferences. Part I includes chapters discussing the ethical rationale, terminology, patient-based evidence, participation and patient input. Part II sets out methodology including: Qualitative Evidence Synthesis, Discrete Choice Experiments, Analytical Hierarchy Processes, Ethnographic Fieldwork, Deliberative Methods, Social Media Analysis, Patient-Reported Outcome Measures, patients as collaborative research partners and evaluation. Part III contains 15 case studies setting out current activities by HTA bodies on five continents, health technology developers and patient organisations. Each part includes discussion chapters from leading experts in patient involvement. A final chapter reflects on the need to clearly define the goals for patient involvement within the context of the HTA to identify the optimal approach. With cohesive contributions from more than 80 authors from a variety of disciplines around the globe, it is hoped this book will serve as a catalyst for collaboration to further develop patient involvement to improve HTA. "If you’re not involving patients, you're not doing HTA!" - Dr. Brian O’Rourke, President and CEO of CADTH, Chair of INAHTA

Healthcare decision makers in search of reliable information that compares health interventions increasingly turn to systematic reviews for the best summary of the evidence. Systematic reviews identify, select, assess, and synthesize the findings of similar but separate studies, and can help clarify what is known and not known about the potential benefits and harms of drugs, devices, and other healthcare services. Systematic reviews can be helpful for clinicians who want to integrate research findings into their daily practices, for patients to make well-informed choices about their own care, for professional medical societies and other organizations that develop clinical practice guidelines. Too often systematic reviews are of uncertain or poor quality. There are no universally accepted standards for developing systematic reviews leading to variability in how conflicts of interest and biases are handled, how evidence is appraised, and the overall scientific rigor of the process. In Finding What Works in Health Care the Institute of Medicine (IOM) recommends 21 standards for developing high-quality systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research. The standards address the entire systematic review process from the initial steps of formulating the topic and building the review team to producing a detailed final report that synthesizes what the evidence shows and where knowledge gaps remain. Finding What Works in Health Care also proposes a framework for improving the quality of the science underpinning systematic reviews. This book will serve as a vital resource for both sponsors and producers of systematic reviews of comparative effectiveness research.

Considers medical technology consensus development programs in Canada, Denmark, Finland, Netherlands, Norway, Sweden, England and the United States.