Tackling ethical issues in health technology assessment: A proposed framework.
Summary of "Tackling ethical issues in health technology assessment: A proposed framework."
Objectives: Values are intrinsic to the use of health technology assessments (HTAs) in health policy, but neglecting value assumptions in HTA makes their results appear more robust or normatively neutral than may be the case. Results of a 2003 survey by the International Network of Agencies for Health Technology Assessment (INAHTA) revealed the existence of disparate methods for making values and ethical issues explicit when conducting HTA.Methods: An Ethics Working Group, with representation from sixteen agencies, was established to develop a framework for addressing ethical issues in HTA. Using an iterative approach, with email exchanges and face-to-face workshops, a report on Handling Ethical Issues was produced.Results: This study describes the development process and the agreed upon framework for reflexive ethical analysis that aims to uncover and explore the ethical implications of technologies through an integrated, context-sensitive approach and situates the proposed framework within previous work in the development of ethics analysis in HTA.Conclusions: It is important that methodological approaches to address ethical reflection in HTA be integrative and context sensitive. The question-based approach described and recommended here is meant to elicit this type of reflection in a way that can be used by HTA agencies. The questions proposed are considered only as a starting point for handling ethics issues, but their use would represent a significant improvement over much of the existing practice.
Affiliation
University of Oxford and Oxfordshire Primary Care Trust.
Journal Details
This article was published in the following journal.
Name: International journal of technology assessment in health care
ISSN: 1471-6348
Pages: 1-8
Links
- PubMed Source: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21736860
- DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0266462311000250
Medical and Biotech [MESH] Definitions
Ethics Consultation
Services provided by an individual ethicist (ETHICISTS) or an ethics team or committee (ETHICS COMMITTEES, CLINICAL) to address the ethical issues involved in a specific clinical case. The central purpose is to improve the process and outcomes of patients' care by helping to identify, analyze, and resolve ethical problems.
Duty To Recontact
The ethical and/or legal obligation of a health provider or researcher to communicate with a former patient or research subject about advances in research relevant to a treatment or to a genetic or other diagnostic test provided earlier, or about proposed new uses of blood or tissue samples taken in the past for another purpose.
Ethical Analysis
The use of systematic methods of ethical examination, such as CASUISTRY or ETHICAL THEORY, in reasoning about moral problems.
American Public Health Association
Professional organization concerned with issues affecting personal and environmental health, including federal and state funding for health programs, programs related to chronic and infectious diseases, and professional education in public health.
Outcome And Process Assessment (health Care)
Evaluation procedures that focus on both the outcome or status (OUTCOMES ASSESSMENT) of the patient at the end of an episode of care - presence of symptoms, level of activity, and mortality; and the process (ASSESSMENT, PROCESS) - what is done for the patient diagnostically and therapeutically.
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