Patients involved in new medicines and treatments

In October 2014, IAPO Policy Manager Alison Lightbourne attended a meeting to discuss health technology assessment (HTA) and how it will help or limit patient access to new medicines and treatment.

HTA is quickly evolving into a global issue and is now featured within the World Health Organisation (WHO) work on universal health coverage. The meeting was a gathering of the Health Technology Assessment international (HTAi) Patient and Citizen Involvement subgroup.

23 people attended the three day workshop from a range of HTA agencies, patient organizations and industry partners. The informal, discussion-based format helped strengthen relationships and highlight opportunities for collaboration.

Alison shared that IAPO members have already discussed the Values and Standards on Patient and Citizen Involvement in HTA. These were translated into Spanish and shared with IAPO members at the Latin American Regional Meeting in August.

The subgroup members began to develop a work plan to support implementing the values and standards, and how patient and citizen involvement in HTA can be highlighted as part of the next HTAi Annual Conference in June 2015. This will be on ‘Global Efforts in Knowledge Transfer: HTA to Health Policy and Practice’.