A Review of Ministry of Health’s Experience on Institutionalization of Health Technology Assessment in Turkey

Abstract

Evidence-based health policies are indispensable for the health systems to achieve their objectives and sustainability. In particular, the importance and necessity of developing evidence-based health policies have increased due to reasons such as aging population, the increase in the innovation of medical technologies and rapidly increasing costs. There are different tools used to generate evidence-based health policies, one of the most powerful of which is the health technology assessment (HTA). The method is gaining importance and its usage becomes widespread in the world. Turkey has also launched some initiatives to institutionalize HTA in 2012. The first important step has taken with the establishment of the Department of Health Technology Assessment under the General Directorate of Health Research (GDHR) of Ministry of Health. However, expectations regarding the institutionalization of the HTA in Turkey have not fully met. In this study, we aim (1) to share our experience on the activities carried out in the institutionalization process of HTA in Ministry of Health of Turkey and (2) to help policy makers to establish more powerful HTA structure by identifying encountered problems and suggested solutions.  

Keywords

• Institutionalization,Health Technology Assessment,Health Policy,Turkey,Turkey

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