Applying Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis as an Evidence-Based Health Technology Assessment Methodology in Health Care Decision Making

Health technology assessment (HTA) is a scientific field designed to establish tools for the acquisition, use or exchange of medical technologies. HTA is research based, practice-oriented evaluation of relevant available knowledge on both the direct and intended, as well as the indirect and unintended, consequences of health technologies, in the short and long term. The main purpose of HTA is to inform technology-related policymaking in healthcare, and it is sometimes called ‘the bridge between evidence and policy making’. HTA is conducted by interdisciplinary groups using explicit analytical frameworks drawing from a variety of methods. Over the last decade, the need to assess the efficiency of a health technology has been strengthened, especially in hospitalization institutions, due to their limited resources and the continuous stream of innovative promising technologies arising on a daily basis. The importance of specific HTA in hospitals arises from the unique characteristics of the hospital environment – hospitals are the ‘port of entry’ of new technologies in the healthcare system.