Health technology assessment: an Australian perspective.
Like many other countries, Australia has placed increasing emphasis on the assessment of medical technologies over the past decade. This emphasis is shaped in part by financial constraints, and in part by the organization of the health care system and its dominance by publicly-funded hospitals. Two committees, the Superspecialty Services Subcommittee of the Australian Health Ministers' Advisory Council, and the National Health Technology Advisory Panel have been particularly influential in developing guidelines for technology assessment. These guidelines emphasize not only the accumulation of primary data during the implementation of a new technology, but also a follow-up process for on-going evaluation of the contributions of a particular technology to clinical care. Presently the two committees are being merged into one agency named the Australian Health Technology Advisory Committee. This agency will be given enhanced authority to guide the diffusion and utilization of new technologies into the delivery process for health care.
Hailey
D M
DM
Health Technology Unit, Australian Institute of Health, Canberra.
Crowe
B L
BL
D001315:Australia; D003625:Data Collection; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical / Q000379:methods / Q000458:organization & administration*