On 17th September 2018, Sarah Garner, coordinator of the Innovation, Access and Use team under the Essential Medicines and Health Products program, World Health Organization, had an informal meeting at the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP). She was eager to learn about HITAPs experiences and challenges (technical and non-technical) encountered while working on HTA projects, both domestically and internationally.
The meeting began as Dr. Yot Teerawattananon, the Secretary General of the HITAP Foundation, welcomed the guests and introduced the HITAP team in attendance. Afterwards, Dr. Jomkwan Yothasamut introduced Thailand’s Universal Health Coverage Scheme (UCS) and the process of developing benefits package under the scheme. Ms. Manushi Sharma then gave a presentation on HITAP’s role in supporting the evidence-informed policy making internationally, especially in Asia region. Further Ms. Garner expressed special interest in Guide to Health Economic Analysis and Research (GEAR) website,which is a platform specialized in helping worldwide academics, researchers, and economic evaluation practitioners who work in low- and middle-income contexts to conduct high quality, policy relevant health economics research. (For more information on GEAR please click here)
The meeting concluded with the discussion on future collaboration which can be foreseen under the forthcoming HITAP grants and network i.e. the Access and Delivery Partnership (ADP) and International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI) to build technical capacity of HTA in Kenya, the Philippines, and Indonesia.
