Abstract
Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a multidisciplinary field that addresses the health, economic and social impacts of health technologies. In many countries, public or private institutions for HTA were established. HTA plays an essential role in supporting policy decision-making such as reimbursement decisions on pharmaceuticals and medical devices, and clinical decisions such as clinical guidelines development.
In this paper (part 1 of 2) , we reviewed emerging HTA activities in Asia, focusing on Korea and Thailand. The Korean Health Insurance Review Agency (HIRA) was originally established to review claims submitted by medical institutions and to assess the quality of health care. In 2007, the HIRA started HTA for the reimbursement decisions on pharmaceuticals. The National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency (NECA) was established in 2008 as a HTA agency to conduct systematic reviews and economic evaluations. In Thailand, the Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP) , was established in 2007 in order to take responsibility for appraising a wide range of health technologies and programs, including pharmaceuticals, medical devices, interventions, individual and community health promotion and disease prevention as well as social health policy. To support reimbursement decisions, the HITAP conduct economic evaluations for the selected new pharmaceuticals with highest priorities.
