Health technology assessment: From sustainability to innovation

Technological innovation has yielded truly remarkable advances in health care during the last five decades. The proliferation of health care technology and its expanding uses have contributed to burgeoning health care costs. The development, adoption, and diffusion of technology are increasingly influenced by a widening group of policy makers in the health care sector. Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a multiprofessional and multidisciplinary evaluation approach designed to assess health technology in the broadest sense of the term, from its instruments to the rearranging of its organizational structures. It is by now an established methodology at national and international levels that involves several medical disciplines thanks to its versatility.