NICE (National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) has partnered with five health technology assessment bodies from around the world to work together on shared challenges.
The bodies that form the collaboration include the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH); Australian Government Department of Health and Aged Care; Healthcare Improvement Scotland; Health Technology Wales and All Wales Therapeutics & Toxicology Centre.
By working together on shared priorities, the bodies hope to be able to identify and share solutions on familiar challenges they are currently facing. Looking ahead to the future, the objective is to include other health tech assessment bodies.
Initially the work is based across five priority areas; COVID-19, collaborating with regulators, digital and artificial intelligence, future-proofing of health tech assessment systems, and work-sharing and efficiency gains:
- COVID-19 – to share details on how they are managing medicines, working alongside regulators, prioritising certain topics and approaching economic modelling.
- Collaborating with regulators – by applying a joint approach and working with regulatory bodies around the world, it aims to identify where health tech assessment and regulatory partnerships can improve.
- Digital and artificial intelligence – digital health technologies will be assessed and how they are developed with a main focus on assessing artificial intelligence.
- Future-proofing of health tech assessment systems – for this priority area, health tech assessment processes will be discussed and how they can improve the forecast of the methodological and technological challenges and face issues at hand.
- Work-sharing and efficiency gains – this priority area focuses on the recognition of sharing health tech assessment data and the exploration of a new joint clinical assessment.
Meindert Boysen, Head of International Affairs at NICE, stated: “After years of successful informal collaboration, I am excited that we have now formalised our partnership with key members of the global health tech assessment community, for the benefit of patients, the NHS, and the life sciences.
“We share many of the opportunities and challenges that major developments in science and health care are presenting to us. By working together we will be able to anticipate, recognise, and responds to these. Sharing and developing solutions that work for all we serve.”
