Oct 19, 2018

International HTA organization will meet in Cologne in June 2019

IQWiG is coordinating the scientific programme

Around 1000 experts for health technology assessment (HTA) are expected to meet in Cologne at the annual meeting of the international HTA organization from 15-19 June 2019. The German Institute for Quality and Efficiency in Health Care (IQWiG), which is located in Cologne, is coordinating the scientific programme for this meeting.

Experts and organizations from 65 countries

The event is organized by International (HTAi), a non-commercial organization including experts from all over the world who either generate HTA reports themselves or use these reports for health care and health policy decisions. 82 organizations and about 2500 members from 65 countries are currently members of HTAi.

HTA after 2020

The main topic of next year’s meeting is the question as to how HTA can further develop after 2020, which is an issue of upmost importance, especially for Europe. This is because, on the one hand, funding by the EU Commission for the European HTA network (EUnetHTA) will expire in 2020. On the other, on a political level there are currently controversial discussions about harmonizing HTA in Europe. A contentious proposal by the Commission suggests, among other things, that results of HTA assessments primarily conducted by one HTA agency of  a member state should be binding for all other member states.

Beyond this – in the narrower sense, political – topic, the meeting will also address the issues of digitalization, so-called personalized medicine, as well as challenges for threshold countries with regard to the implementation of HTA.

IQWiG and DIMDI as hosts

Since 2003, the annual HTAi meeting has been held in various locations throughout the world: in 2018, it took place in Vancouver and in 2020, it will be in Beijing. For 2019, the decision was in favour of Cologne, with IQWiG as the HTA agency responsible for the scientific programme. The German Institute of Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI), which is also located in Cologne and is a subordinate authority of the Federal Ministry of Health, will organize the framework programme. Both hosts support the local convention agency, which will be recruited via a public invitation to tender.

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