Abstract

In countries with a healthcare system mostly financed by public sources (such as Australia and the United Kingdom), timely patient access to new effective health technologies (eg, medical services, medicines) is one of their central objectives.^,

Expediting access to innovative technologies can lead to improvements in health outcomes and can drive continued innovation in the health system. There are likely to be multiple factors influencing delays in patient access to new health technologies such as the efficiency of the health technology assessment (HTA) review processes (including multiple layers of decision making), criteria to inform funding decisions (including lack of clarity in HTA evidence requirements), and budget constraints.

Within HTA processes, economic evidence, predominantly generated by decision analytic models, is one of the key inputs for government decisions regarding the public funding and pricing of new health technologies. In this commentary we focus on uncertainty in the process of developing decision analytic models, its impact on increasing the number of HTA resubmissions and hence delays in access to new health technologies, and how disease-specific reference models can potentially address this.