Towards a New Framework for Addressing Structural Uncertainty in Health Technology Assessment Guidelines

Salah Ghabri, Irina Cleemput and Jean-Michel Josselin ()
Additional contact information
Salah Ghabri: HAS - Haute Autorité de Santé [Saint-Denis La Plaine]
Irina Cleemput: KCE - Belgian Health Care Knowledge Centre
Jean-Michel Josselin: CREM - Centre de recherche en économie et management - UNICAEN - Université de Caen Normandie - NU - Normandie Université - UR - Université de Rennes - CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: Providing scientific advice and recommendations for public decision making entails identifying, selecting and weighing evidence derived from multiple sources of information through a systematic approach, while taking into account ethical, cultural and societal factors. Integrated in the evaluation process are exchanges between regulatory agencies, private firms, scientific experts and government representatives. In the case of drugs and medical devices, health technology assessment (HTA) agencies are increasingly commissioned to evaluate innovations in order to provide government with recommendations and advice on reimbursement and/or pricing. To undertake this task, HTA agencies [1–6] in Europe and elsewhere have developed methodological guidelines on the economic evaluation of health technologies [7]. One component of these guidelines deals with ways for both manufacturers (pharmaceutical and medical device firms) and HTA agencies evaluators (modelers, economists and public health experts) to address uncertainty. Several types of uncertainty have indeed been identified in HTA: methodological, parameter and structural uncertainty. Most guidelines describe quite well how to deal with the first two categories, although there is still room for improvement. However, recommendations about how to tackle structural uncertainty remain largely elusive. HTA agencies and decision makers may thus be exposed to oversimplifying assessments and recommendations by putting aside complex forms of uncertainty such as struc-tural ‘deep' uncertainty [8]. The editorial is not intended to promote new approaches to exploring structural uncertainty, rather to emphasizeconcerns related to the topic, such as definition and analysis. Our aim is therefore to highlight the need to renew the analytical framework guidance for HTA.

Date: 2018-02
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Published in PharmacoEconomics, 2018, 36 (2), pp.127-130. ⟨10.1007/s40273-017-0603-4⟩

There are no downloads for this item, see the EconPapers FAQ for hints about obtaining it.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:halshs-01683822

DOI: 10.1007/s40273-017-0603-4

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().