Benchmarking health technology assessment agencies-methodological challenges and recommendations.

Area of Science:

• Health Technology Assessment (HTA)
• Comparative Effectiveness Research
• Healthcare Policy and Management

Background:

• Health Technology Assessment (HTA) agencies play a crucial role in evaluating new medicines.
• Variability exists in HTA processes and timelines across different agencies.
• A need for standardized metrics to compare HTA agency performance has been identified.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop a benchmarking tool for HTA agencies to enhance clarity on process differences and similarities.
• To enable performance assessment within and across HTA agencies.
• To identify time-intensive areas in HTA processes and support continuous improvement.

Main Methods:

• Identified common HTA process steps and milestones for inter-agency benchmarking.
• Developed an 86-question benchmarking tool with HTA agency input, validated via pilot study.
• Analyzed data from 109 HTA reviews across five HTA agencies to demonstrate tool utility.

Main Results:

• A novel HTA benchmarking methodology and tool were successfully developed.
• Comparative metrics revealed significant differences in median timelines for HTA recommendations among agencies.
• Results were interpreted considering agency-specific characteristics, scope, and remit.

Conclusions:

• Consensus on common HTA review milestones is achievable for jurisdictional process mapping.
• The benchmarking tool offers potential to increase HTA process transparency.
• The tool can facilitate quality assurance and performance improvement for HTA agencies.