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QUALITY OF HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT REPORTS PREPARED FOR THE MEDICAL SERVICES ADVISORY COMMITTEE

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 October 2016

Martin Hua ,
Tristan Boonstra ,
Patrick J. Kelly ,
Andrew Wilson ,
Jonathan C. Craig  and
Angela C. Webster
Martin Hua
Affiliation:
Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydneymhua8891@uni.sydney.edu.au
Tristan Boonstra
Affiliation:
Royal Melbourne Hospital
Patrick J. Kelly
Affiliation:
Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
Andrew Wilson
Affiliation:
Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney; Menzies Centre for Health Policy, University of Sydney
Jonathan C. Craig
Affiliation:
Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney
Angela C. Webster
Affiliation:
Sydney School of Public Health, University of Sydney Centre for Kidney Research, The Children's Hospital at Westmead Centre for Transplant and Renal Research, Westmead Hospital
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Abstract

Objectives: The Medical Services Advisory Committee (MSAC) makes recommendations to the Australian Government for funding health technologies under the Medicare Benefits Schedule (MBS). Differences in public, clinical, commercial, and political opinions on health expenditure emphasize the importance of defensible funding decisions. We aimed to evaluate the quality of health technology assessment (HTA) reports over time and among health technologies assessed for MSAC.

Main Outcome Measures: A cohort study was performed of HTA reports prepared for MSAC between 1998 and 2013. We measured the quality of HTA reports using reporting guidelines proposed by the European Collaboration for Assessment of Health Interventions. Individual component scores across eleven domains were calculated, and summed for an overall aggregate score. We used linear regression to investigate any change in quality over time and among the types of technologies assessed.

Results: We included 110 HTA reports. The safety (80 percent), effectiveness (84 percent), economic (74 percent), and organizational (99 percent) domains were better reported than the psychological, social, and ethical considerations (34 percent). The basic (75 percent), methodological (62 percent), background (82 percent), contextual (46 percent), status quo (54 percent), and technical information (66 percent) that framed each assessment were inconsistently reported. On average, overall quality scores increased by 2 percent (p < 0.001) per year, from approximately 60 percent to 80 percent over the 15-year period, with no significant difference among surgical, diagnostic or other nonpharmaceutical health technologies (p = 0.22).

Conclusions: HTA reports prepared for MSAC are a key tool in allocating scarce health resources. The overall quality of these reports has improved, but the reporting of specific domains and subthemes therein could be better addressed.

Keywords

Evidence-based medicinePolicy makingTechnology assessmentBenchmarkingBiomedical - standards
Type
Policies
Information
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 32 , Issue 4 , 2016 , pp. 315 - 323
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

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