Health technology assessment

In Sweden, the Centre for Assessment of Medical Technology (CAMTÖ) leads the development of HTA cooperation in the healthcare region Uppsala-Örebro. In February 2020, CAMTÖ started its work on the assessment of peripherally inserted central venous catheter. After the completion of the evaluation process, the report would be published at the web-site of Örebro County Council.

In Norway, the mini-HTA for Localizer™ wire-free guidance system designed to mark and guide to non-palpable breast lesions was released at the end of January 2020. The method was determined as efficient and safe. It was recommended to be introduced as part of the clinical routine in the hospital.

In February 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published one new diagnostics guidance (for SepsiTest assay for rapidly identifying bloodstream bacteria and fungi), one new medical technologies guidance (for Episcissors-60 for mediolateral episiotomy) and two Medtech innovation briefings (for Plus Sutures for preventing surgical site infection and National Early Warning Score systems that alert to deteriorating adult patients in hospital).

The General Director of Lombardy Healthcare released a decree no. 916 of 29.1.2020. The decree contains several important notices, the most important one being that the “Rules of the regional HTA commission” was published. In the first half of February 2020, it was published on the website of the regional HTA program of the Lombardy region.

On January 31, 2020, the non-statutory HTA body, Swiss Medical Board, published the results of the report in which they compared the surgical and non-surgical treatment of rotator cuff tears. Though the surgery is more effective, the traditional treatment demonstrated better cost-benefit results. Thus, the Swiss Medical Board recommends the rotator cuff surgery with limitations.

In January 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published only three new interventional procedure guidance (for reducing the risk of transmission of Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease (CJD) from surgical instruments used for interventional procedures on high-risk tissues, fetoscopic and open prenatal repair for open neural tube defects in the fetus).

In late January 2020, the network of European HTA agencies, EUnetHTA, announced the final plan of the project OTCA21 “Hypoglossal nerve stimulation systems for treatment of obstructive sleep apnoea.”

The HTA unit of the Lombardy region opens the possibility for the public to comment on the health technologies which are in the assessment phase. The call is open until February 28, 2020.

Norway established in 2013 a framework “New Method” for the introduction of innovations into the health care system through either a national or hospital-based health technology assessment. In this framework, all innovations should undergo HTA before being funded. In January 2020, four new mini-HTA projects of medical technologies were launched in Norway: robotic-assisted procedures, ear reconstruction, continuous electroencephalography, among others.

In December 2019, the Norwegian Institute of Public Health released an HTA report regarding the effectiveness of uterine fibroids treatment commissioned by the Centre for joint decision-making to summarize the findings regarding this method. Embolization probably reduces the time that is needed to get back to the activity in comparison to myomectomy and hysterectomy.

In early January 2020, the network of European HTA agencies, EUnetHTA, announced the final plan of the project OTCA24 “The 24-hour blood pressure measurement device Mobil-O-Graph® with the built-in pulse wave velocity algorithm ARCSolver® to measure arterial stiffness for the optimization of hypertension treatment and assessment of cardiovascular risk”.

With a regional decree of December 18, 2019, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of thirteen medical devices belonging to various therapeutic areas.