title: The adaptation of health technology assessment reports: identification of the need for, and development of, a toolkit to aid the process.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Europe has many health technology assessment (HTA) agencies, each producing their own HTA reports. Adapting HTA reports for different contexts could reduce the need for multiple reports on the same health technology with resultant saving of time and resources. This study aims to examine and understand the process of adaptation, and to develop a toolkit that would help the adaptation of reports produced by other countries.
  
  
  METHODS
  The methods used were a review of the literature; a survey of twenty-nine European HTA organizations, two rounds of a Delphi survey, a face-to-face meeting of twenty-one European network for Health Technology Assessment (EUnetHTA) representatives, iterative rounds of review, and two rounds of quality assurance testing (termed applicability testing).
  
  
  RESULTS
  Descriptions of previous examples of adaptation in the literature are sparse. Most respondents had previous experience in adapting reports, and all believed that adaptation was useful, and there was the ability to benefit from the use of a toolkit to aid in the process. EUnetHTA Partners developed and tested an adaptation toolkit. The toolkit is composed of a series of checklists and resources that identify or clarify the relevance, reliability, and transferability of data and information from existing reports.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Consensus of opinion from twenty-nine European organizations/networks has indicated that the adaptation of HTA reports would be desirable and beneficial. A toolkit was developed to help with the adaptation of HTA reports produced in other settings. This collection of resources is available for use by all HTA agencies and can be accessed at: http://www.eunethta.net/upload/WP5/EUnetHTA_HTA_Adaptation_Toolkit_October08.pdf.
authors.affiliation: University of Southampton, Southampton SO16 7NS, UK. s.turner@soton.ac.uk
authors.forename: Sheila
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Turner
authors.forename: Deborah L
authors.initials: DL
authors.lastname: Chase
authors.forename: Ruairidh
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Milne
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Cook
authors.forename: Nicholas J
authors.initials: NJ
authors.lastname: Hicks
authors.forename: Claire
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Rosten
authors.forename: Liz
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Payne
authors.forename: Suzanne
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Coles
authors.forename: Eleanor
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Bell
mesh_terms: D004282:Documentation / Q000592:standards*; D007391:International Cooperation; D016730:Program Development; D012107:Research Design; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical