GMS health technology assessment
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GMS Health Technol Assess · Jan 2008
Procedures and Criteria for the regulation of innovative non-medicinal technologies into the benefit catalogue of solidly financed health care insurances.
Because great interest in an efficient range of effective medicinal innovations and achievements has arisen, many countries have introduced procedures to regulate the adoption of innovative non-medicinal technologies into the benefit catalogue of solidly financed health care insurances. With this as a background, this report will describe procedures for the adoption of innovative non-medicinal technologies by solidly financed health care insurances in Germany, England, Australia and Switzerland. This report was commissioned by the German Agency for Health Technology Assessment at the German Institute for Medical Documentation and Information. ⋯ In principle, the starting point for improving regulations of innovative non-medicinal technologies lies in the extension of transparency, the shortening of decision-making time (especially the central decision-making processes), the further development of evaluation methods, more flexibility and increased capacity in the governing bodies' decision-making processes and also, if needed, in the creation of a single authority to act as contact for people who are interested in introducing an innovation into the benefit catalogue. More research is required, especially in the area of decentralized decision-makers and how they actually decide whether or not to introduce innovative technologies into the core care system (methods, criteria, etc.). In view of this, it would also be interesting to see how the application of innovations actually happens in practice once their adoption has been approved by the corresponding governing bodies.