ABSTRACT
Health technology assessment (HTA) is an assessment of the clinical outcomes of safety, efficacy, effectiveness and economic outcomes of cost-effectiveness and budget impact. Strictly speaking, we require the probabilities and timing of every safety or efficacy event (outcome) and the value of those events. The value of an event is twofold, one is the impact on the individual and the second is the impact on the health care payer. For the individual, the most widely accepted standard for effect is the impact on health-related quality of life (HRQOL) that includes survival, while for the payer the relevant impact is cost (Caro et al. 2012; Drummond et al. 2003). Other important measures of effect for the patient or payer are wait times, patient treatment volume, efficiency or equity which can be thought of as inputs into either the quality of life or the cost. For example, a change in wait times impacts patient’s quality of life, while treatment volume or efficiency has an impact on average cost. Before we can describe the sources of data, we need to introduce why we need all of this data.
