Navigating change: a comparative analysis of health technology assessment reforms across agencies - processes, drivers, and interdependencies.

Objectives: Health technology assessment (HTA) is a critical part of healthcare decision making in many countries. Changes in Methods and Processes (M&P) of HTA agencies can affect the time and degree of patient access to treatments. Published literature focuses on the different M&P adopted by HTA agencies, rather than on how these have come about over time. Our study investigates key HTA reforms and explores their drivers and interdependencies in a set of HTA agencies in Europe, Asia-Pacific, and North America.

Methods: We conducted a targeted literature review on M&P guidelines and subsequent changes to those, for 14 HTA agencies. We supplemented and validated initial findings with 29 semi-structured interviews with country-specific experts. We used analytical tools to create process maps, proactivity and influence networks, and clusters of HTA agencies.

Results: We found that processes leading to M&P reforms follow similar steps across HTA agencies. The three most important drivers to reforms were HTA practice and guidelines in other countries; the healthcare policy, legal, and political context within the agency's country; and experience of challenges in the assessment by the HTA body itself. International collaborations have the potential to accelerate the evolution of HTA systems and the implementation of reforms.

Conclusion: We identified PBAC (Australia), CDA-AMC (Canada), NICE (England), IQWiG (Germany), and ZIN (the Netherlands) as HTA agencies that are catalysts of HTA reforms as well as internationally influential. International collaborations may represent a useful route to accelerate changes as long as they ensure wide stakeholder engagement at an early stage.