PP27 Reusing And Adapting Health Technology Assessments (HTAs): An Example From The COVID-19 Time

Abstract

Introduction

Health technology assessment (HTA) reports are complex technical documents that address multiple aspects of the incorporation of a technology into the health care system applying complicated methodologies coming from different disciplines. The purpose of HTA is to support decision-makers and these should have an adequate level of training to fully understand these assessments. However, most HTA education programs and courses are intended for HTA doers and there is a lack of practical guidance training aimed at preparing health managers or policy makers in HTA. The objective is to describe an HTA training program developed for decision-makers of the three levels (health care administration, hospital management and clinical practice).

Methods

Rolling Collaborative Review (RCR) 01 of convalescent plasma was identified and selected because it complied with our Population Intervention Comparator Outcome Design Question. The EUnetHTA HTA adaptation Toolkit was used to check the relevance (about research question); reliability (quality of the report) and transferability (application of information to the target setting). Additional considerations regarding the local context were examined. A panel of four professionals and one patient was formed to rate the importance of the outcomes and to carry out the external review

Results

According to the toolkit, information on RCR01 Convalescent Plasma could be adopted for the safety and effectiveness domains. The technical characteristics and current use domains were adapted and extended. It was considered of interest to include the domains of organization and ethics. The organizational aspects were answered through the information retrieved in a search for systematic reviews and guides, and with the collaboration of experts. The ethics domain was answered through a specific literature search on ethical issues related to COVID-19 and transfusions.

Conclusions

The use of the EUnetHTA Toolkit has been helpful in supporting the adaptation process. The adoption of the effectiveness and safety domains from already developed HTA assessments is an efficient way to provide useful information for the decision-making process. However, contextual elements should be included in the adaptation process to ensure a complete framework for the decision.