PGIMER :7th International Fellowship on Health Technology Assessment takes off

Chandigarh: The present dilemmas and bottlenecks faced in the policy-making and implementation afflicting the health sector along with issues related to accessibility, affordability, disparity in terms of gender, geographic access and reliance on out of pocket expenditure were some of the issued addressed by Mr Kumar Abhay, Financial Advisor, Post Graduate Institute of Medical Education and Research (PGIMER), Chandigarh . He was speaking at the 7th International Fellowship on Health Technology Assessment (HTA) organized by the School of Public Health, PGIMER. The fellowship function is to go on from February 19 to 23.

The program is to be held in collaboration with the Department of Health Research, Ministry of Health and Family Welfare; World Health Organization; National Health Systems Resource Centre; Centre for Health Economics, University of York, United Kingdom; and Imperial College, London.

This event will be followed by the 2nd National Conference on Health Technology Assessment to be held at the PGIMER Chandigarh on February 24 and 25.

Additional Professor of Health Economics at School of Public Health, PGI, Dr Shankar Prinja who also spoke on the occasion said the purpose of this workshop is to build the potential of program managers, academicians and researchers on assessing health care interventions and programs from an economic point of view.

The 7^th international Fellowship is being conducted by the Government of India's recently created Health Technology Assessment Board.

Prof Karl Claxton who is an internationally renowned health economist from Centre for Health Economics, the University of York in the United Kingdom is also teaching at the workshop.

30 senior researchers and academicians from leading organizations such as Indian Council of Medical Research and its associated organizations like National Institute of Research in Tuberculosis, Chennai and National Institute for Research in Reproductive Health, Mumbai; National Health Systems Resource Centre, New Delhi; Indian Institute of Public Health, Shillong and Indian Institute of Health Management Research, Jaipur will be participants at the workshop.

The HTA is a multidisciplinary field that systematically examines various aspects of a public health program. The various aspects of the program studied include safety, clinical efficacy and effectiveness, organizational implications, social and ethical considerations of the application of a health intervention and technology - usually a clinical health intervention, cost, cost-effectiveness and Drugs reports the Tribune.

The program application may assist the government in better resource allocation ensuring better equity and access. It can further assist in the reduction reduce or elimination of unsafe and ineffective interventions which may otherwise turn out to be costly.