Cartagena, August 2024 (PAHO) - The Pan American Health Organization, through its Department of Innovation, Access to Medicines and Health Technologies (IMT), was present at the Latin American Policy Forum and the Latin American Regional HTAi Meeting, as well as at the Health Technology Assessment Roundtable (HTA) of ISPOR - Latin America.
The theme of the Forum was “Navigating the Future: Horizon Scanning and Early Dialogue in Health Technology Assessment (HTA)”. Vania Canuto, ITM's Technical Officer for Health Technology Research and Production Ecosystem Development, moderated the panel “Regional Experiences” which was attended by representatives of patients, industry and two health technology assessment institutions from the Region: The Institute for Health Technology Assessment of Colombia and the National Commission for the Incorporation of Technologies in the Unified Health System of Brazil.
At the regional meeting, whose theme was “From Policy to Practice, the Role of HTA in the Improvement of Health Systems”, Vania spoke about “International/regional networks to support the Implementation of HTA”, highlighting the work of PAHO in HTA and RedETSA.
The ISPOR - Latin America HTA Roundtable was also held, where a presentation was made on “Evaluation of High and Medium Cost Medicines”. This year's focus was on the adaptability and transferability of HTAs and high-cost technologies for highly prevalent diseases.
PAHO is the secretariat of the Health Technology Assessment Network of the Americas (RedETSA), a network created in 2011 that today includes 42 institutions from 21 countries in the Americas.
Founded in 2003, HTAi is a global organization that brings together institutions from around the world and is dedicated to promoting the importance and use of HTA. Notably, earlier this year, PAHO/RedETSA and HTAi signed a Memorandum of Understanding to formalize and strengthen their collaborative work on HTAs.
ISPOR, a professional society for health economics and outcomes research, is an international organization created in 1995 with the goal of improving global health decision-making.
