Guidance on Best Practices |
Institutionalizing Health Technology Assessment Mechanisms: A How To Guide
Using the principles as a starting point, there is also a series of practical considerations needed for institutionalizing HTA processes at country level. A WHO report titled, Institutionalizing Health Technology Assessment Mechanisms: A How To Guide, provides detailed information on the various steps and consideration for how this can be done (Bertram, Dhaene et al. 2021). The report includes sections for the following:
- establishing a mandate,
- legal considerations,
- establishing institutional and governance arrangements,
- processes and evidence for assessment and appraisal, and
- monitoring and evaluation.
There are several useful visuals in this report, however two that are worth highlighting are a logical framework for HTA mechanisms that shows how the different inputs and activities of HTA link to the outcomes and outputs and a graphic showing how mandates for HTA can potentially change as country health systems progress. The latter shows how in fragile states the mandate of HTA can be for defining essential services lists and responding to emergencies while at the later stages for many high-income countries the mandate is for marginal analyses.
What’s In, What’s Out? Designing Benefits for Universal Health Coverage
This resource, published in 2017 by the Center for Global Development, provides a comprehensive overview of health benefit package design processes. The book has four principle sections each followed by a commentary by policymakers. The introduction section develops a 10-step framework for the HBP design process.
The three principle sections of the book is divided into issues of:
- governance and processes;
- methods for designing a benefit package; and
- considerations of ethics, rights, and political economy.
Each section contains several chapters authored by global technical experts in each area.
Making explicit choices on the path to UHC: The JLN health benefits package revision guide
Once benefit packages are developed, they must be continuously revised and updated to reflect changes that may be required over time, including those related to changing epidemiological situations, availability of resources, service delivery modalities, etc. Making explicit choices on the path to UHC: The JLN health benefits package revision guide, a guide developed by the Joint Learning Network for Universal Health Coverage (JLN), provides guidance to low and middle-income countries (LMICs) on the process of revising benefits packages, based on learning from 18 countries (Baltussen, Bijmakers et al, 2022). This Guide summarizes the experiences of the 18 studied countries; identifies five key principles to consider in HBP revision; proposes steps for organizing the benefits package revision process; assists countries to determine the appropriate analytical approach for the revision; provides guidance on identifying the appropriate data and evidence to use; and presents practical recommendations for engaging in policy dialogue with Ministries of finance and financial authorities.