“Until today, the Hta”, i.e. theHealth technology assessment, “has been the heritage of clinicians, drug experts and economists. The patient was therefore always somewhat passive because, despite being the subject of the debate, he could not intervene in any of these processes. Now, finally, at a European level, the patient will also have a place in the evaluation of the information and evidence that is provided to decide whether and what type of reimbursement to give to a drug”. As Paola Kruger, Eupati patient expert (European Patients Academy on Therapeutic Innovation)he comments, on the occasion of the recent webinar ‘Understanding Hta!’the contents of the new European regulation (EuHta) which, for the first time, provides the patient among the stakeholders in the clinical treatment evaluation process.
This is an “epochal change”, but it does not mean that the patient is “suddenly” everywhere. Rather – continue Kruger – it’s a first opportunity to exercise the right to express an opinion on evaluations, including clinical onesfor everything that falls within its competence.”
With the purpose of train these skills“we have developed a course of patient training” available “on the Eupati Europe sites with innovative material on the EuHta regulationso that it can be consulted. Our ambition is to translate this material into Italian too. Like Eupati – recalls the expert – we already provide, within our course, a chapter on HTA in which we explain how it works, what it consists of and how an HTA evaluation process is composed. We would then like to enrich the process, also through webinars”, such as ‘Understanding Hta!’, which have already started in recent weeks, “with information on this new regulation, to make people understand the opportunities that exist for patients, both at European and Italian, and give them the opportunity to train on the topic. Eupati – she reiterates – is certainly at the forefront in patient training and this is also demonstrated by the fact that it won a tender from the EU Commission to train patients on HTA”.
Many patients “believe that dealing with a pharmaco-economic matter is too difficult. In reality, this is not the patient’s task within the HTA – reassures Kruger – If it is true that the HTA serves to carry out an evaluation of the reimbursement of the drug – that is, ‘if and how much’ it is innovative or important for a certain category of patients – it is not necessarily the case that the patient must know” and be competent in “all the scientific and financial areas of the particular molecule being evaluated. Of course, it is important for the patient to know the process to establish what the most relevant evidence is and therefore understand whether it is strong enough or not sufficient, but he must also contribute by bringing his own voice in terms of substance, not just form – underlines the expert – The entire chapter of Data collection from the patient therefore becomes increasingly relevant. The function of the patient within an Hta evaluation will be that of acting as a patient and therefore of bringing not only the experience of his own pathology, but also of providing advice on what the areas to evaluate may be, what are the ‘comparator’for example, to take into consideration.”
The value of a patient trained or informed about Hta “will take up a large part of our commitment in the near future – observes Kruger – It is in fact important that the patient also says whether a drug is truly useful or not because, sometimes, unfortunately, there is the risk of evaluating a drug as not very useful because perhaps the evidence scientific findings are not that strong, while the level of quality of life changes radically for the patient. This point must really be taken into consideration – he concludes – if we really want to talk about value based healthcare”, that is valuable care.
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