Abstract
Health Technology Assessment (HTA), a tool for priority setting, has emerged as a means of ensuring the sustainability of a Universal Health Coverage (UHC) system. However, setting up an effective HTA system poses multiple challenges and knowledge exchange can play a crucial role in helping countries achieve their UHC targets. This article reports the results of the discussion during a preconference session at the 2019 HTAsiaLink Conference, an annual gathering of HTA agencies in Asia, which supports knowledge transfer and exchange among HTA practitioners. As part of this discourse, 3 main HTA challenges were identified based on experiences of selected countries in Asia and Africa, namely Bhutan, Kenya, Thailand, and Zambia: availability of funding, building technical capacity, and achieving buy-in among stakeholders for successful translation of HTA research into UHC policy. The potential solutions identified through this South-South engagement included establishing a legal mandate for HTA, building local technical capacity through partnerships and enhancing strategic communication with stakeholders to increase awareness, among others. South-South Knowledge Exchange can therefore be instrumental in sharing lessons learned from common challenges and offer potential solutions to address capacity building initiatives for HTA in LMICs.
Highlights
An increasing number of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are moving toward providing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as part of their efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 (SDGs).[1]
We seek to identify the main challenges encountered by LMICs in Asia and Africa in institutionalizing Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and potential solutions based on the experiences of those LMICs
Evidence-informed priority setting often occurs in an ad-hoc, one-off manner in LMICs without attention to the long-term, fixed budgetary support arrangements.[8]
Summary
An increasing number of low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) are moving toward providing Universal Health Coverage (UHC) as part of their efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 (SDGs).[1]. The experiences from LMICs, such as Thailand, India, China, Brazil, and so on, that have established some form of HTA process[4,5,6] offer lessons on common challenges across settings. Countries that are implementing or planning to implement a systematic process for HTA can benefit from knowledge sharing and collaboration to a solution to what, alone, appear to be unsolvable challenges. We seek to identify the main challenges encountered by LMICs in Asia and Africa in institutionalizing HTA and potential solutions based on the experiences of those LMICs. We do so by drawing on a session hosted at the annual HTAsiaLink Conference in 2019, a unique platform for member countries to expand engagement in mutual learning and sharing solutions for institutionalising HTA.[7]
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