Washington DC, 22 November 2022 (PAHO)- From 7-9 November 2022 , the XIII Regional Meeting of the Health Technology Assessment Network of the Americas (RedETSA) was held in the city of Brasilia, Brazil. Representatives from 18 countries discussed the Health Technology Assessment (HTA) process at all stages of the technologies’ life cycle, in order to face the challenges of their incorporation into health systems. The event was organized in conjunction with the III Congress of the Brazilian Health Technology Assessment Network - Rebrats.
Marcelo Queiroga, Minister of Health of Brazil; Socorro Gross Galiano, Representative of the PAHO/WHO Country Office in Brazil; Sandra Barros, Secretary of Science, Technology, Innovation and Strategic Inputs in Health; Vania Canuto, Director of the Department of Management and Incorporation of Health Technologies; and Alexandre Lemgruber, PAHO Regional Advisor on Health Technologies Management attended the opening of the event.
During the XIII Regional Meeting, open scientific conferences were held and organized according to the different stages of health technologies’ life cycle (regulation-evaluation-incorporation-use-monitoring). A total of 311 people participated in person and 228 virtually thanks to the direct transmission of the event.
The following sessions were held under different formats: two main presentations with international speakers, an informative session to strengthen HTA capacities, three round tables on country experiences representing the different stages in the life cycle of health technologies: pre-evaluation, evaluation and decision-making for incorporation, and post-incorporation processes of health technologies in health systems. In addition, four panels were also organized to further the discussions on HTA value frameworks in decision-making processes, estimation and use of thresholds in the incorporation of health technologies, adaptive HTA, and performance analysis and monitoring of technologies incorporated.
In the framework of the XIII Regional Meeting, took place the closed meeting of RedETSA members which aimed to continue advancing in the institutionalization of Health Technology Assessment in the Americas as a mechanism to inform health coverage decision-making based on evidence, as well as to establish the RedETSA work plan for 2023. Forty-three people from 32 member institutions participated, representing 15 countries in the Region.
PAHO, RedETSA's secretariat, presented on the activities in progress and updates from the Regional Database of Health Technology Assessment Reports of the Americas (BRISA). The four working groups of RedETSA (medical devices, adaptation of HTA reports, equity and Real World Evidence) presented their updates and advances to the rest of the members of the Network. The Spanish Network of Agencies for HTA (RedETS) and the Brazilian Health Technology Assessment Network (Rebrats) presented their experiences and exchanged collaboration possibilities with those present. The delegates of the countries with advances in the institutionalization of HTA as a tool for decision-making presented their experiences to the rest of the Network. Presentations were made about the creation of RENETSA in Peru, the advances in SISALRIL in the Dominican Republic, the creation of the HTA Agency in Uruguay, and the recent creation of the National HTA Directorate in the Ministry of Health of Ecuador. Finally, the 2023 Work Plan for RedETSA was discussed and developed.
The last day of the XIII Regional Meeting, representatives of RedETSA attended the Plenary of the National Committee for Health Technology Incorporation (CONITEC). The recording of the open scientific conferences will soon be available on the RedETSA website (www.redetsa.org) and on PAHO’s YouTube channel (PAHO TV).
