The Role of HTA in Canadian Health Care
Canada’s health care system is an exceptional mixture of public financing and private payers. Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is a policy oriented form of research focused on informing decision makers about the financing of health services and the reimbursement of new health technologies. The purpose of this paper is to provide an overview of Canadian health care and its financing and to describe the role of HTA on federal, provincial and hospital levels. Canada and many other countries face HTA production and utilization issues such as transferability of economic information, timeliness, independence, and effectiveness thresholds. Based on the similarities and differences between Canadian and Russian health care systems, the authors share some thoughts about potential ways to develop HTA in transition economies.