Differences between health technology assessment topics in high- and middle-income countries: a scoping review

The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) has encountered different issues and challenges over the last two decades. The main purpose of this research is to review the issues and challenges in high- and middle-income countries through reviewing studies related to the HTA.

The HTA area literature of different countries was collected from 2009 to 2020 and analyzed using scoping review, based on Scopus and WoS databases.

Given the fact that the HTA is practically done in high- and middle-income countries, the results of reviewing the studies and articles of countries reveal that high-income countries seek to increase the participation of stakeholders and enhance the transparency of processes, policy-making, and regulation of the HTA, as well as the systematization of various participant institutions in this area. Middle-income countries, on the other hand, are mostly involved in raising awareness, training and skill development of HTA-related staff, institutionalizing the concept of HTA, and allocating appropriate resources for effective and safe decision-making in their health system.

The problem of incoordination between stakeholders (participant institutions) in the HTA, and thereby, problems in decision-making were found in many of the studied reports and articles. Thus, one of the useful efforts to be made by different countries to maintain the integrity of this system would be the process of involving all members of this system and the formation of a healthy ecosystem in the HTA.