A timely work describing how localized hospital-based health technology assessment (HB-HTA)
complements general ¿arms-length¿ HTA agency efforts and what has been the collective global
impact of HB-HTA across the globe. While HB-HTA has gained significant momentum over the past
few years expertise in the field and information on the operation and organization of HB-HTA
has been scattered. This book serves to bring this information together to inform those who are
currently working in the field of HTA at the hospital regional national or global level. In
addition this book is intended for decision-makers and policy-makers with a stake in
determining the uptake and decommissioning of new and established technologies in the hospital
setting. HTA has traditionally been performed at the National Regional level by HTA Agencies
typically linked to governments. Yet hospitals are the main entry door for most health
technologies (HTs). Hospital decision-makers must undertake multiple high stakes investment and
disinvestment decisions annually for innovative HTs usually without adequate information.
Despite the existence of arms-length HTA Agencies inadequate information is available to
hospital decision-makers either because relevant HTA reports are not yet released at the time
of entry of new technologies to the field or because even when the report exists the
information contained is insufficient to clarify the contextualized informational needs of
hospital decision makers. Therefore there has recently been a rising trend toward
hospital-based HTA units and programs. These units programs complement the work of National
Regional HTA Agencies by providing the key and relevant evidence needed by hospital decision
makers in their specific hospital context and within required decision-making timelines. The
emergence of HB-HTA is creating a comprehensive HTA ecosystem across health care levels which
creates better bridges for knowledge translation through relevance and timeliness.
