Welcome to the HTAcademy

From left: Clare McGrath, Pfizer, Jeroen Luyten, HTAcademy European Scholarship winner and Professor Maarten J. Postma, Chairman of the European Expert Committee

Jeroen Luyten is this year’s winner of Pfizer’s European HTAcademy scholarship of €40,000

Amsterdam, July 5, 2011 – Jeroen Luyten, a PhD student at the University of Antwerp in Belgium, was selected this year’s winner of the European HTAcademy scholarship by an independent expert committee – in tough competition with Dutch and German national winners. His research project aims to investigate the moral relevance of medical effectiveness and intangible costs for the societal valuation of QALY-gains; dimensions that are so far under-explored within the QALY framework. Mentor for this project is Professor Philippe Beutels of the Centre for Health Economics Research and Modelling Infectious Diseases at the University of Antwerp. more

“Healthcare technology is defined as prevention and rehabilitation, vaccines, pharmaceuticals and devices, medical and surgical procedures, and the systems within which health is protected and maintained.” (INATHA)

“Technology assessment in health care is a multidisciplinary field of policy analysis. It studies the medical, social, ethical, and economic implications of development, diffusion, and use of health technology.” (INATHA)

Background

Demographic change and medical breakthroughs will necessitate and result in advancementsin healthcare. In order to have the continuing ability to offer patients medical achievements of the highest quality, we need means to efficiently allocate our resources.

This is where Health Technology Assessment (HTA) comes in. HTA refers to the systematic process of assessing healthcare technologies in terms of their benefits and costs. The type of evidence typically considered in HTA includes safety, efficacy/effectiveness, costs and cost-effectiveness, social, legal, and ethical aspects of healthcare technologies and their broader impact on patients and the national health system. The appraisal process, distinct from the assessment, uses the evidence base developed to derive recommendations about the adoption and diffusion of a given technology. This involves value judgements on the relevance of evidence, cost-effectiveness thresholds (if applicable), and wider social considerations which may well vary according to the local context in which a health technology should be used. Thus, the underlying scientific methodology of HTA must be constantly examined and developed to ensure that it works to improve patient care, support decision-making, and enhance the functioning of the healthcare system as a whole.

In order to support the further development of Health Technology Assessment, the research based pharmaceutical company Pfizer and renowned experts in the field of HTA have joined together to create the HTAcademy. Following its successful start in Germany in 2009, the HTAcademy has expanded and now also welcome applicants from Belgium, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The goal of this European program is to support up and coming scholars from different academic disciplines, such as medicine, health economics and medical ethics, in their work on HTA. An interdisciplinary expert committee will select the scholarship winners and ensure an independent and transparent selection process.

Last year’s European scholarship was awarded to Dr Janneke Grutters from the Netherlands, for her project proposal entitled “Every person is unique: the role of heterogeneity in health technology assessment”. More information about Dr Grutters and her project proposal is available here.

We are pleased to be able to contribute, together with you, to the further advancement of Health Technology Assessment.

With best regards,