MTRC has completed reimbursement report for robotic surgery in 11 EU countries. Procedure codes are available only in number of geographies, including Belgium, Denmark, England, Germany, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. Robotic-specific procedure codes are not available in Austria, France, Italy and the Netherlands.

Belgian Health Care Knowledge Center has released new clinical guidelines for evaluation and management of low back pain without serious underlying cause and radicular pain (including neurogenic claudication). It has number of implications for medical procedures, including transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation, radiofrequency denervation, disk replacement, spine fusion and other.

MTRC is working on the number of reimbursement reports including robotic surgery, ablation of heart tissue for atrial fibrillation, coronary imaging and interventional procedures, mechanical thrombectomy for stroke, peripheral intravascular ultrasound (IVUS), and peripheral vascular procedures on veins for deep vein thrombosis.

In 2014, Federal Joint Committee (G-BA) commissioned Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG) to conduct health technology assessment of different approaches for lung volume reduction in patients with severe pulmonary emphysema. And now IQWiG has published the final report. The main conclusion is that it was not possible to draw any conclusion about relative effectiveness of bronchoscopic and surgical methods due to lack of the data.

Since the start of the program of the off-the-shelf reimbursement reports, MTRC has released 12 reports in the areas of transcatheter aortic valve implantation (TAVI), transapical and transluminal mitral valve repair and replacement procedures, and peripheral vascular interventions, including drug-coated balloons, drug-eluting stents and percutaneous atherectomy.

Guidelines focused on treatment for recurrent and metastatic cancer, neoadjuvant treatment and the most optimal diagnostic strategy.

The report issued within the framework of Joint Action 3 confirmed superiority of triclosan-coated sutures in reducing the risk of total incisional surgical site infections over non-antibacterial coated sutures. No conclusions were made in relation to the chlorhexidine-coated sutures due to lack of evidence.

At the meeting of 18th of April National Commission for Evaluation of Medical Devices and Health Technologies made decisions about add-on reimbursement of 17 medical devices. Ten decisions have been released to date for orthopedic, osteointegrated processing, cardiac and intravascular devices.

Russian Government has approved draft legislation about telemedicine in the country. It covers number of elements including united information system in health care, exchange of information about stakeholders in health care, ability to perform teleconsultation, remote monitoring and to issue electronic prescriptions.

Cédric Carbonneil from the Ministry of Health published a letter in Value in Health in response to the article "New French Coverage with Evidence Development for Innovative Medical Devices: Improvements and Unresolved Issues" published in January 2016. Dr Carbonneil offers an interesting insights into background, rationale and direction of development of this important coverage with evidence development program for medical devices, in-vitro diagnostics and medical procedures in France.

Changes will be made in nine chapters of Nomenclature. In relation to medical technologies and in-vitro diagnostics, the most important changes include changes in conditions for two ophthalmology and endoscopy codes, new conditions for reimbursement of photodynamic therapy in dermatology, introduction of two new codes for IVDs, and creating of requirements for reimbursement of number of IVD tests in pregnancy.

European Commission launched an evaluation of necessity to prolong support to cooperation between health technology assessment agencies beyond 2020, when the current EUnetHTA Joint Action 3 comes to an end) in September 2016. As part of the assessment, it launched an online public consultation in October 2016, which ended in January 2017. The objective of the consultation was to collect views of different stakeholders on the future of collaboration in the HTA field.