@article{3149451,
    title = "Health technology assessment: what is it? Current status and
perspectives in the field of electrophysiology",
    author = "Fattore, Giovanni and Maniadakis, Nikos and Mantovani, Lorenzo G. and and Boriani, Giuseppe",
    journal = "Europace",
    year = "2011",
    volume = "13",
    number = "2",
    pages = "II49-II53",
    publisher = "Oxford University Press",
    issn = "1099-5129, 1532-2092",
    doi = "10.1093/europace/eur083",
    keywords = "Comparative effectiveness; Cost effectiveness; Defibrillators; Health
economics; Health technology assessment; Policy",
    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 interdisciplinary work. Sound economic and
organizational studies that extend comparative effectiveness studies may
facilitate dialogue between medical science and policymaking."
}