OBJECTIVES

Scarce financial resources and increasing costs have settled the crucial role of hospital based Health Technology Assessment (HTA) units. Quality, consistency and transparency of their recommendations should be prioritized. Our aim was to identify the more relevant criteria used by stakeholders in HTA at a tertiary academic medical center in Brazil as to establish a consolidated decision-rule approach.

METHODS

We conducted a cross-sectional study from November to December 2019. In total, ten healthcare providers, five section chiefs and a hospital administrator completed an anonymous electronic survey. Based on AdHopHTA (Adopting hospital based HTA) initiative, ten questions were proposed regarding a postulated technology and its: 1) quality of scientific evidence, 2) types of outcomes in researches, 3) potential care of vulnerable population, 4) address of unmet needs, 5) cost profile, 6) innovative nature, 7) care process improvement, 8) organizational, 9) academic and 10) environmental impact. Respondents should classify each domain according to a 1 to 5 scale, where 5 meant very important and 1 unimportant, respectively.

RESULTS

Quality of scientific evidence was considered as very important by 93.7% of participants, followed by cost profile (69.7%). Care process improvement and type of outcome were also seen as very important by 63.5% of respondents. Academic and environmental impact and innovative profile were deemed very important by 12.5% of respondents. Innovative profile, on the contrary, was viewed as unimportant by 16% of interviewees.

CONCLUSIONS

Quality of evidence, cost profile, care process improvement and types of outcomes in clinical trials eventually were held as cornerstones for good practice in decision-making process at the present institution. This pilot application of a MCDA framework improved quality, consistency and transparency once more explicit and weighted in relevance criteria conferred much more objectivity on HTA.