title: Health technology assessment: what is it? Current status and perspectives in the field of electrophysiology.
abstract: Health technology assessment (HTA) is the multidisciplinary field of policy analysis that studies medical, social, ethical, and economic implications of the development, diffusion, and use of health technologies. Its worldwide diffusion needs to be understood in the context of evidence-based healthcare delivery policy, and it is strongly driven by the search for new cost-containment policies by the governments of universal healthcare systems. This article presents the three main pillars of HTA: evaluating comparative effectiveness, cost-effectiveness, and organizational impact. While comparative analysis is more familiar to cardiologists, cost-effectiveness and organizational studies are less widely known because they expand the perspective of the evaluation to institutional settings and society at large and require significant inter-disciplinary work. Sound economic and organizational studies that extend comparative effectiveness studies may facilitate dialogue between medical science and policymaking.
authors.affiliation: Department of Institutional Analysis and Public Management, Centre for Research in Healthcare Management (CERGAS), Università Bocconi, Via Roentgen 1, Milano 20136, Italy.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Fattore
authors.forename: Nikos
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Maniadakis
authors.forename: Lorenzo G
authors.initials: LG
authors.lastname: Mantovani
authors.forename: Giuseppe
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Boriani
mesh_terms: D020811:Biomedical Technology / Q000639:trends*; D022062:Electrophysiologic Techniques, Cardiac / Q000639:trends*; D005060:Europe; D005544:Forecasting; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical / Q000639:trends*