KEY ASPECTS REGARDING THE INTRODUCTION OF HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT IN ROMANIA

Abstract

Regarding Health Technology Assessment (HTA) represents a form of policy research which considers the short and long term consequences of health technologies. The first steps towards HTA were taken in Romania more than 15 years ago, but the effects seem insignificant even though they have never been measured. After 2011 HTA re-entered on the Romanian health care reforms’ agenda and it started the design of the legal framework in order to develop the HTA system. The scope of this article is to briefly present some key principles and aspects which could represent the fundamentals of a quick development of HTA in the following years. This article is not meant to present an evaluation of the HTA steps which have been done so far. In order to develop a HTA system there is a need for the involvement of key policy making stakeholders who have to express their willingness and demand for the usage of data generated by the HTA system for the decision-making process. Also, there is a need of resources (human, financial, organisational) and for capacity-building of institutions who will offer the ground to develop the HTA. In Romania, the willingness to develop the HTA system is expressed in the health policies (specifically in the Government Program for 2013-2016), but there is still a lot to do in terms of designing the legal framework and the development of required institutions for an HTA system. In this context, there are four key aspects which could facilitate the introduction and functioning of the HTA in Romania, grouped under the „Four P” (Partnership, Pragmatism, Predictability and Praise), aspects detailed in the context of Romanian health care system. The application of these „Four P” has to be coupled with the health policies in order to integrate the HTA system with the continuous reform of the health services: public financing, basic package, evaluation of quality etc. And to all these aspects there is a need to associate change champions, leaders who believe in HTA and who could become pioneers and development catalysts of HTA in Romania if they get support from the political environment. Keywords: HTA - Health Technology Assessment, health policy, health reform, resources allocation.