In the majority of children and adolescents with epilepsy, optimal drug therapy adequately controls their condition. However, among the remaining patients who are still uncontrolled despite mono-, bi- or tri-therapy with chronic anti-epileptic treatment, a rescue medication is required. In...

Background: Decision-analytic modelling (DAM) has become a widespread method in health technology assessments (HTA), but the extent to which modelling is used differs among international HTA institutions. In Germany, the use of DAM is optional within HTAs of the German Institute of Medical...

Background: Health Technology Assessments (HTA) procedures differ substantially across the various European countries. We reviewed recent appraisals of a pharmaceutical manufacturer in three major European markets (France; Italy; Germany) and identified and categorized related decision drivers....

Background: Health technology assessment (HTA) is currently one of the major challenges in assessing medical innovations and healthcare systems. In Europe, the European Network for Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA) has been aspiring to develop and implement standards for international...

Background: Economic evaluation (EE) is a dynamically advancing knowledge area of health economics. It has been conceived to provide evidence for allocating scarce resources to gain the best value for money. The problem of efficiency of investments becomes even more crucial with advances in...

Background: Reducing rates of healthcare acquired infection has been identified by the Australian Commission on Safety and Quality in Health Care as a national priority. One of the goals is the prevention of central venous catheter-related bloodstream infection (CR-BSI). At least 3,500 cases of...

Background: The completion of the Human Genome Project has increased the pace of discovery of genetic markers for disease. Despite tremendous efforts in fundamental research, clinical applications still lag behind expectations, partly due to the lack of effective tools to systematically search...

The passage of the UHC law in 2019 mandated the creation of the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Program to identify and recommend the most cost-effective health technologies for the Philippine government to procure. Since its inception, the HTA has mostly assessed COVID-19 related...

Background: The necessity to measure and reward "value for money" of new pharmaceuticals has become central in health policy debates, as much as the requirement to assess the "willingness to pay" for an additional, qualityadjusted life year (QALY). There is a clear need to understand the...

Background: What constitutes innovation in health technologies can be defined and measured in a number of ways and it has been widely researched and published about. However, while many countries mention it as a criterion for pricing or reimbursement of health technologies, countries differ...