Page 34 - Htain Manual

In 2000, the European Collaboration for Assessment of Health Interventions was

established and in 2001, an HTA unit was established in McGill University Health Centre

(MUHC). Later in 2003, the International Society for Health Technology Assessment (ISTAHC)
was dissolved and in its place, HTA International was created for the coordination among

various international HTA agencies in 2003 at Canmore, Alberta. An elected International

Board; which, in turn is supported by a secretariat, working group, executive committee and
multiple advisory committees in their structure, manage HTAi. International Network of

Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA) was established in 1993 with its

secretariat at IHE, Canada and has collaborating groups and member agencies from 32 various

countries from Europe, Americas, Asia, Africa and New Zealand. In 2005, a group of 35

organizations across Europe led by Danish Centre for Health Technology Assessment started
collaborative activities which led to the EUnetHTA collaboration in 2009; which is at present

a network with about 80 collaborative organizations.

Table 1 summarizes some of the national and provincial HTA agencies and their roles
in the respective country.

HTA in developing countries

Many developing countries including India, China, Iran and Philippines etc. have
adopted HTA as a tool for policy change and are on the path of transitioning to evidence-

based decision making. There are various barriers affecting this evolution. Some of these are

listed below:
Barriers in Developing Countries:

1. Lack of trained Human Resource

2. Cost and time restrains for transformation of systems

3. Educational Barriers

4. Organizational barriers
5. Poor dissemination of research results to policy makers

6. Lack of local HTA evidence

7. Limited awareness among policy makers

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