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Health Technology Assessment (HTA) defines the systematic analysis of short and long-term consequences of the application of medical technologies with the aim of supporting decisions in policy-making and practice. The aim of directly supporting decision-making at a political level is the major difference to evidence-based medicine and guideline development. In Germany, HTA is being established only since the nineties. In this period, however, important steps for a permanent establishment of HTA in the German health service have been undertaken. One of these steps was the German HTA project, which was funded from 1995 to 2001 by the Federal Ministry of Health. Beginning in 2001, this initiative will be relaunched by the German Institute for Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI) as a regular HTA program. The bodies managing the German health care system rely increasingly on HTA reports when deciding on coverage of health technologies. HTA thus proves to be an instrument, which could be of benefit in the optimisation of the health care system.