Health ministry inaugurates international workshop on Health Technology Assessment

Government is committed to reducing out of pocket expenses on healthcare: Anupriya Patel

Faggan Singh Kulaste and Anupriya Patel, Ministers of State for Health and Family Welfare, recently inaugurated a three-day international workshop on ‘Health Technology Assessment’ (HTA) in New Delhi. The three-day workshop was jointly organised by the Department of Health Research (DHR), ICMR, National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE)-UK and Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HiTAP)-Thailand.

Kulaste stated that Health Technology Assessment is very essential and needed for achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and goals set under the Five Years Plan of the Government. He also added that this will aid in fulfilling commitment of the Government and will help in bringing people of the country under the Universal Health Coverage (UHC). The minister stressed on the need to develop high quality delivery health systems for the development of the country. He said that HTA will guide us towards strengthening the healthcare systems further. Kulaste said that the ministry is keen to learn from the experiences of the UK and Thailand in order to deliver affordable healthcare to all citizens.

Patel said that UHC is the need of the hour for India and HTA can be a potent solution for this. The government is very keen and has already started a journey towards achieving this. She further added that there is a need to increase health spending in order to reduce the out of pocket spending of the common masses in the country which is presently very high and most of it goes for buying medicines. This is a serious concern for the government and it is committed towards HTA that will address this. She also said that HTA will help to shift towards an evidence-based policy making. She added that the insights and valuable experiences of NICE (UK) and HiTAP (Thailand) will help to frame an effective UHC.

Dr Soumya Swaminathan, Secretary, Department of Health Research noted that HTA is needed to take forward the SDGs. She stated that HTA will provide a roadmap to set the priorities within the country for promotive, preventive and curative services in healthcare. HTA is essential for making universal health coverage sustainable and effective, he added. Dr Swaminathan said that HTA will provide a transparent, consultative process of decision making that is based on evidences and provides inputs to policymakers for providing universal health services that are affordable, appropriate and effective.

BP Sharma, Secretary, HFW, mentioned that HTA will go a long way in formulating health plans at affordable prices. Sharma added that HTA has been a game changer since the last decade and has resulted in significantly reducing morbidity and mortality in several countries that have adopted it. He further added that HTA will help to resolve questions of cost effectiveness and will bring down the out of pocket expenditure through evidence-based technology and health practices.

The workshop will have international delegates from Thailand’s Health Intervention Technology Assessment Programme, The National Institute of Health and Care Excellence (NICE) International of UK, University of York in UK and the World Health Organisation (WHO) South-East Asia.

EH News Bureau