Selected Topics - Biomedical Technology
The WWW Virtual Library: Public Health
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Biomedial Technology at UNSW
Events
Global policies and related documents
Reports, guidelines and projects
- Access: how do good health technologies get to poor people in poor countries?
"This book explores the challenges and approaches to improving access to health technologies for poor people in poor countries. Our goals are to develop and illustrate a way to think systematically about the barriers to access and to identify strategies that can help improve access." [Harvard Series on Population and International Health, 2008]
- Bioethical Implications of Globalization: An International Consortium Project of the European Commission
Published in PLOS Medicine, this article outlines the Bioethical Implications of Globalization (BIG) project, a 42 months provisional project that aims to anticipate the major reasons for bioethical concern surrounding globalisation, to forecast future scenarios and to formulate new policy options in this field. The project’s purpose is both to raise short-term, tactical considerations and to provide a longer-term, strategic perspective.
- Biosecurity: A 21st Century Challenge
Today, biotechnology is yielding life-enhancing breakthroughs at a thrilling pace. Yet, an elite community of scientists attending to these advances is issuing stern warnings that these powerful new tools may also give rise to fiercely destructive forces. This report addresses the challenges posed by these issues.
- Ensuring value for money in health care: The role of health technology assessment in the European Union
This book, published in 2008 by the World Health Organization on behalf of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, "provides a detailed review of the role of health technology assessment (HTA) in the European Union. It examines related methodological and process issues in the prioritisation and financing of modern health care, and presents extensive case studies on the situation in Sweden, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany and the United Kingdom. A number of issues are examined and there is a particular emphasis on the responsibility and membership of HTA bodies, assessment procedures and methods, the application of HTA evidence to decision-making, and the dissemination and implementation of findings. The book aims to highlight ways in which the HTA process in Europe could be improved by examining key challenges and identifying potential opportunities to support value and innovation in health care."
- Global Pharmaceutical Development and Access: Critical Issues of Ethics and Equity
The article presents global data on access to pharmaceuticals and discusses underlying barriers. Two are highly visible: pricing policies and intellectual property rights; two are less recognized: the regulatory environment and scientific and technological capacities. Two ongoing transitions influence and even distort the problem of universal access to medications: the epidemiologic transition to an increasing burden of chronic non-communicable diseases; and the growing role of biotechnology products (especially immunobiologicals) in the pharmacopeia. Examples from Cuba and Brazil are used to explore what can and should be done to address commercial, regulatory, and technological aspects of assuring universal access to medications. [author abstract] [MEDICC Review Vol. 13, No 3, PP.16-22, July 2011]
- How can the impact of health technology assessments be enhanced?: Policy Brief
"Health technology assessment (HTA) is an important tool for informing effective regulation of the diffusion and use of health technologies. The key policy issues surrounding the use of Health technology assessment HTA fall into three areas: (a) the bodies, decision-makers and other stakeholders involved; (b) the methods and processes employed; and (c) how the findings of HTAs are implemented. The impact of HTA can be enhanced if: key stakeholders (e.g. patients, providers and industry) are adequately involved; decision-makers give a prior commitment to use assessment reports (and assessments meet their needs); the necessary resources are available for implementing decisions; there is transparency in the assessment and decision-making processes; and collaboration, knowledge and skills are transferred across jurisdictions… This brief examines selected issues in the application and uptake of HTA in Europe. First, the impact of HTA can be affected by the bodies and stakeholders involved in the assessment and appraisal process… Second, along with its distinct scientific and policy objectives, HTA should be grounded in robust and transparent methods and processes, and be based on clear and standardized guidelines that outline evidence and methodological requirements… Third, the impact of HTA depends on effective and timely application in decision-making and subsequent implementation. The overall transparency of the HTA process and the extent to which the information generated meets decision-makers’ needs (for example, some require that broader social and ethical issues be considered while others do not) also influence the use of HTA. To address these issues, the governance of HTA could be improved in three key areas. First, it could be enhanced by involving a broad range of stakeholders throughout the HTA process, including setting priorities in the choice of topics for HTA, reviewing and interpreting evidence, and commenting on decisions… Second, the methods and processes employed in HTA could be enhanced by improving their timeliness while maintaining high-quality assessments… Finally, the impact of HTA on decision-making can be advanced with better implementation at local level… As many countries increasingly gear their health systems towards policies that emphasize measurement, accountability, transparency and evidence-based practices, the challenges of HTA should be addressed in order to achieve concurrent health system goals and support those services that offer greatest value for money and impact on health outcomes." [World Health Organization on behalf of the European Observatory on Health Systems and Policies, 2008]
- Intersection of Biotechnology and Pharmacogenomics: Health Policy Implications
Increasing knowledge of the genetic basis of disease is changing the landscape of health care. Two critical aspects are growth in biotechnology and growth in personalised health care, particularly targeting medicines based on genetic information (pharmacogenomics). This paper provides an overview of the health policy implications of the integration of biotechnology and pharmacogenomics.
- mHealth: New horizons for health through mobile technologies: Based on the findings of the second global survey on eHealth
"The use of mobile and wireless technologies to support the achievement of health objectives (mHealth) has the potential to transform the face of health service delivery across the globe. A powerful combination of factors is driving this change. These include rapid advances in mobile technologies and applications, a rise in new opportunities for the integration of mobile health into existing eHealth services, and the continued growth in coverage of mobile cellular networks… For the first time the World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Observatory for eHealth (GOe) has sought to determine the status of mHealth in Member States; its 2009 global survey contained a section specifically devoted to mHealth. Completed by 114 Member States, the survey documented for analysis four aspects of mHealth: adoption of initiatives, types of initiatives, status of evaluation, and barriers to implementation. Fourteen categories of mHealth services were surveyed: health call centres, emergency toll-free telephone services, managing emergencies and disasters, mobile telemedicine, appointment reminders, community mobilization and health promotion, treatment compliance, mobile patient records, information access, patient monitoring, health surveys and data collection, surveillance, health awareness raising, and decision support systems." [WHO Global Observatory for eHealth series - Volume 3 June 2011]
- Review of guidelines for good practice in decision-analytic modelling in health technology assessment
The objectives of this article are: To identify existing guidelines and develop a synthesised guideline plus accompanying checklist; to provide guidance on key theoretical, methodological and practical issues; and to consider the implications of this research for what might be expected of future decision-analytic models. “A systematic review of existing good practice guidelines was undertaken to identify and summarise guidelines currently available for assessing the quality of decision-analytic models that have been undertaken for health technology assessment. A synthesised good practice guidance and accompanying checklist was developed. Two specific methods areas in decision modelling were considered. The first method’s topic is the identification of parameter estimates from published literature. Parameter searches were developed and piloted using a case-study model.”
Educational resources
- Health Technology Assessment Handbook
Published by the Danish Centre for Health Technology Assessment, National Board of Health, National Board of Health, Denmark in March 2008, this 2nd edition handbook presents "up-to-date, research-based methods within not only the development areas of ethics, patient and organisation, but also the more established HTA elements of technology and economy."
Organisations and Networks
UN and multinational
- Essential Health Technologies (EHT)
The Mission of WHO's EHT is to develop and maintain basic operational frameworks for safe and reliable health services and technologies; help Member States complete the basic operational frameworks through project proposals prepared by Member States; develop norms and standards, guidelines, training materials, reference materials and estimation of burden of disease; and focus on diseases of the poor.
Government
- NCRR Division of Biomedical Technology
The US National Center for Research Resources, Division of Biomedical Technology (DBT) supports infrastructure development in the areas of new and existing instrumentation, software development, and biomedical technology in three broad funding categories: Grants for Acquisition of Advanced Instrumentation, Investigator-Initiated Research Grants for Technology R&D and Investigator-Initiated Research Grants
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
The NIBIB is an Institute within the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) devoted to merging the physical and biological sciences to develop new technologies that improve health. The organisation's goal is to accelerate the pace of discovery and speed the development of biomedical technologies that prevent illnesses or treat them when they do strike.
Non Government
- BMEnet - the Biomedical Engineering Network
- European Alliance for Medical and Biological Engineering and Science
"The principle objectives of EAMBES are to: Serve and promote Medical and Biological Engineering and Science (MBES) at European and national levels; Foster, co-ordinate and provide added value to the activities of member organisations in MBES, and collaborate where appropriate with national and international organisations, particularly the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering and Serve and promote MBES education, training, and accreditation programmes."
- International Federation for Medical and Biomedical Engineering
IFMBE, the International Federation for Medical and Biological Engineering, is primarily a federation of national and transnational organisations. These organisations represent national interests in medical and biological engineering. The objectives of the IFMBE are scientific, technological, literary, and educational. Within the field of medical, biological and clinical engineering IFMBE's aims are to encourage research and the application of knowledge, and to disseminate information and promote collaboration.
- International Union for Physical and Engineering Sciences in Medicine
"The principal objective of IUPESM is to contribute to the advancement of physical and engineering sciences in medicine for the benefit and well being of humanity."
Academic Institutions with particular focus in this area
Conference reports
Journals, Newsletters, Forums
- HTAI Vortal
The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Information Resources Vortal comprises a large and growing group of HTA-related web site links organised according to HTA-related subject category. This vortal is meant to be a "sticky" site - one that users go to first and then frequently return to when looking for HTA-related information.
Bibliographies, Libraries
Public health bookshops
Original website founded Lucien E. Schlosser and Eberhard Wenzel, 1997.
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