How to choose health technologies to be assessed by HTA? A review of criteria for priority setting

Introduction. Health Technology Assessment (HTA) plays a key role in the policy and decision-making process. Nevertheless, it is time- and resource-consuming, and therefore requires proper resource allocation. Priority setting, as a best way to organize effective and explicit resource allocation systems, may be applied even in this field. Objective. The aim of this study was to provide an overview of criteria used for priority setting in HTA at European level. Methods. A systematic review of the scientific literature was performed through PubMed alongside consultation of the websites of the European HTA Agencies belonging to the INAHTA. The search was limited to papers written in English and provided with the full text. Documents were considered eligible if providing criteria for priority setting in HTA. Results. Seven scientific articles were retrieved from PubMed and 14 European HTA Agencies released prioritization criteria were analyzed. The most relevant criteria were: frequency/burden of disease, economic impact and costs, potential benefits, impact on ethical, social, cultural and/or legal aspects. Conclusion. This work is meant to contribute to supranational discussion on priority setting at European level and shows that, despite the available evidence, work still needs to be done toward harmonization and sharing of the criteria to adopt.