Health policy evaluation and Health Technology Assessment in the UK were put under the spotlight during a two-week study tour for Chinese officials, hosted by iDSI, which concluded today. The 22 delegates, from both clinical and non-clinical backgrounds, visited London and Cambridge to develop their understanding of the UK healthcare system, including health-related legislation and regulatory mechanisms, policy development and …
Building capacity for undertaking Health Technology Assessment analyses in India
Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is an important tool for prioritizing health resources in India’s journey towards Universal Health Coverage (UHC). This was one of the key take-home messages from the first in a series of workshops designed to build capacity for undertaking HTA analyses in India. Participants from technical institutions across the country travelled to Thiruvananthapuram in Kerala to …
Prof Jo Lord and Dr Kalipso Chalikidou visit Ghana to continue work on optimising hypertension care pathway
The Global Health and Development group at Imperial College London (formerly NICE International) has worked with the Ghanaian authorities, under the leadership of the country’s Ministry of Health for a number of years, with support from the UK’s Department for International Development and more recently the Rockefeller Foundation and PATH under ADP. Since the last visit in April 2016 at which …
A series of events to support the China Health Policy & Technology Assessment Network, led by CNHDRC, the iDSI China HTA hub
17th, 21st-22nd February 2017, China National Health Development Research Centre (CNHDRC) and Global Health and Development Group (GHD), Imperial College London organised a series of events in Xiamen which further illustrate China’s ongoing commitment to improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of its health services. The first day started with the dissemination meeting of a project supported by the UK Prosperity Fund. The …
Monitoring Value for Money of donor expenditure: learning lessons from the iDSI Reference Case
How do donors in international development make sure they are not wasting money? Doing so is harder than it may initially seem. Money is spent thousands of miles away from headquarters, in settings where information is poor, politics complex and staff turnover rapid. In practice, many use Value for Money (VfM) analysis to try and stay on top of this …
The musings of a NICE International intern from when a Vietnamese delegation came to visit
On the 19th of December 2015, NICE International host a 21-strong Vietnamese delegation headed by Professor Phạm Lê Tuấn, Vice Minister of Health, and as a young intern the whole experience was fascinating for me. The delegation comprised a number of heads of departments, directors and senior officials who formed a broad spectrum of Vietnamese health policy makers, seeking to …
iDSI Economist Intelligence Unit report: Driving value in healthcare spending in low- and middle-income countries
Of the US$7.1trn spent annually on healthcare globally in 2014, less than 1% (US$35.9bn) is Development Assistance for Health (DAH). This funding remains crucial for low- and middle-income countries to address their challenges. Before the financial crisis of 2008, development aid had been on an upward trend as steps to address the Millennium Development Goals advanced. However, funding levels have …
What health economics research should iDSI prioritise? Help us decide!
Do you conduct or have you ever conducted health economic evaluations for low- or middle-income countries? If so, we would love to hear from you about where you see the challenges; whether in terms of methodology, data availability, or translation into policy. Simply complete the questionnaire (which should take less than 15-20 minutes) here. Thank you! https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/ResearchMethodsEE This survey is part of an …
HTAsiaLink 7th newsletter features iDSI
The Jul-Dec 2015 edition of the the Reference Case for Economic Evaluation, as well a special interview with Prof Tony Culyer on the role of universities in capacity building for HTA. Read the HTAsiaLink newsletter
The political economy of priority-setting in health in LMICs
This is a discussion summary based on a private roundtable meeting held at the Center for Global Development in February 2015. Update (7 Sep 2015): The paper by Hauck & Smith is now published in the iDSI Knowledge Library. Why study the political economy of priority-setting in health? The global health agenda aims to reach universal health coverage (UHC)—which the …