This is a guest post by Moriah Pollock-Hawthorne, Haverford University.I was an intern at NICE International and an American university student with aspirations to become a doctor. In an effort to learn about universal health coverage and experience a single-payer healthcare system in action, I came

Every healthcare system in the world has to set priorities and make choices. Economic evaluation, in the context of health technology assessment, provides the decision makers with a framework for assessing the costs and benefits of various competing options, to inform fair and efficient use of limit

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QnmnyZ14A4wIn health systems, although there are many stakeholders with different interests (healthcare practitioners, policymakers, industry, patients and the public), many share the value of better health for all. However, when a decision needs to be made, it is not

One day, I was perusing the news and I came across an article about the inclusion of five new high-cost drugs in the Thai benefits package. Unbeknownst to me, the Thai Universal Health Coverage (UHC) released a news article in all domestic newspapers informing the public that the Director-General of

With the introduction of the Universal Health Coverage (UHC) in Asian countries, priority-setting and HTA has become increasingly important.  However, only in the past decade has HTA been used to inform countries’ health programs and policies. As such, HTA agencies are relatively new in Asia.  In 20

In 2007, there were an estimated 58 million deaths worldwide and, according to the WHO, more than half of these deaths (35 million) were caused by chronic diseases.  Another study estimates that the number of deaths caused by chronic diseases will rise to 50 million in 2020.  The economic burden of

There was an overriding theme that HITAP’s activities focused on during the Prince Mahidol Award Conference (PMAC) 2015 – priority setting, which is also the theme for next year’s PMAC. As a new member of the HITAP team, I was involved in different activities during the Conference, particularly help

On April 7-10, 2015, a HITAP team visited Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, for a country scoping visit to explore the potential areas for introducing health technology assessment (HTA) to support health resource allocation, focusing on the investment or disinvestment of health technologies. This visit was c

I have had the unique opportunity to be an international fellow with Thailand’s Health Interventions and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP) for the last five months between February and June 2015. While the task of chronicling the invaluable experiences I have gained in this short time is a daunt

HITAP team facilitated a two and a half day workshop in Kathmandu, Nepal on March 30 – April 1, 2015 at the request of the Nepalese Ministry of Health and Population (MoHP). The goal of the workshop was to explore the potential application of health and technology assessment (HTA) to evaluate and in