Review of Health Technology Assessment in Australia
This Review of Commonwealth Health Technology Assessment (HTA Review) [ 
], announced on 27 February 2010, has been conducted as a Better Regulation Ministerial Partnership between the Minister for Finance and Deregulation, the Hon Lindsay Tanner MP and the Minister for Health and Ageing, the Hon Nicola Roxon MP. The HTA Review was undertaken by the Department of Health and Ageing in consultation with the Department of Finance and Deregulation.
A key objective of the HTA Review was to address the regulatory cost on business that results from HTA processes, to ensure that those processes are efficient, effective and proportionate. The HTA Review has identified opportunities for reform of the processes that are poorly designed, duplicated or unnecessary, imposing unwarranted costs and complexity on business and discouraging innovation.
The HTA Review is also a key part of the Australian Government’s response to the Productivity Commission’s Annual Review of Regulatory Burdens on Business: Manufacturing and Distributive Trades, and an element of the Government’s broader reform agenda for the Australian health system.
Of the 16 recommendations from the HTA Review, the Government has accepted 13 recommendations. Key accepted recommendations are:
- establishment of a single entry point to facilitate HTA applications for reimbursement, supported by a website to clearly communicate the information required for navigating the HTA system from application to market entry. This will see the streamlining of the management and assessment of applications including the identification of the most appropriate assessment pathway for an application;
- improved risk assessment processes to determine the most appropriate methodology to be used in assessing the technology; and
- concurrent assessments for items which need to pass through multiple assessments in the HTA system. This will speed the time to market entry.
The longer-term recommendations will be subject to further consideration.
Contact for information on this page: deregulation@finance.gov.au