Panel session: Supporting tough decisions: linking Health technology assessment (HTA) and national priority setting The International Society for Priorities in Health Care, April 23-25, 2010, Boston, Massachusetts, USA

The major forces driving up health care costs worldwide Demands on health care systems are increasing - as populations grow and/or age, - science advances and - public expectations of health care and quality of life increase.

Challenges: Quality, equity and universal coverage and access are of increasing concern in low and middle income as well as high income countries. At the same time, spending on health care is coming under increasing pressure and scrutiny. What are the available methods or tools for those having to make decisions about priority setting or rationing of health care services?

Sabin and Daniels’s (2008): Conditions for fair and open processes for prioritization: Limit-setting must be public (both decisions and grounds for making them). The grounds for decisions must be seen as (agreed upon to be) relevant to meet health care needs fairly. Limit-setting decisions must be subject to revision and appeal = reversible over time (and the process must meet the first two conditions). Some form of regulation must be in place to ensure that the other conditions are met.

Panel session: The aim of this panel session is first to present the topic of priority setting in health care; and to look more closely how HTAs or similar tools, as the new comparative effectiveness program in USA, can be used as decision making support in these situations; - possibilities and limitations of using HTAs -

Contributors: “Linking HTA to priority setting – framework, concepts, and values”, Presenter: Professor Ole Frithjof Norheim (PhD); University of Bergen, Norway “The link between HTA and priority setting – the case of the USA” Presenter: President Steven Pearson (MD), Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA “Strengths and weaknesses of HTA as a tool for decision making support – applied to priority setting”. Presenter: Director Per Carlson (PhD), National Centre for Priority Setting in Health Care, Sweden “The link between HTA and national priority setting – the case of Norway” Presenter:, Senior Adviser Ånen Ringard (MA), Norwegian Knowledge Centre for the Health Services/ Norwegian Council for Priority Setting in Health Care