Evaluation of a New Endobronchial Double Lumen Tube with Integrated Camera: A Hospital Based HTA Experience

Abstract

Over the last few decades, the developed countries have witnessed a strong increase in healthcare spending, essentially due to the emergence of new diseases, the aging of the population, and the development of new and costly technologies. The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a powerful tool for connecting the technical-scientific and decision-making world, which helps to prevent the introduction of inappropriate, ineffective, or superfluous technologies within the health system, thus limiting the expense, and improving the overall quality of medical care. This paper describes a hospital-based HTA procedure (costs-efficacy evaluation), which has been exploited to compare an innovative device, with integrated camera, for endobronchial intubation in thoracic surgery, with the instrumentation currently in use at the National Cancer Institute “G. Pascale” of Naples, which is the largest Institute of Hospitalization, Scientific Research and Care for the Oncology in Southern Italy. In the case under study, by introducing the new technology, direct variable costs could result in an actual significant spending increase for the “G. Pascale” Institute; however, despite that, the results of the HTA procedure and of the Analysis of Costs Minimization show that the introduction of the innovative device could allow to significantly decrease the intubation time, the overall surgery duration and the costs incurred by the Institute. These results confirm also the usefulness of the hospital based HTA procedures.