Decide - Developing a global HTA and benefit package network

Last 12-14th June a group of over 70 people gathered in Geneva at a meeting organized by WHO on HTA, priority setting, and health benefit package design. Participants included stakeholders from academia, governments, HTA networks, international organizations, and WHO staff from different regions. WHO was convening all participants to map current global activities on health decision making processes, propose to set up a global coordinating mechanism, and present their recent and upcoming work on this area.

The meeting kicked off with presentations from several participants about their work on HTA, benefit package design, and priority setting, mapping the current activities of health decision making processes. Their presentations highlighted the amazing amount of work that is being done on this field, the willingness of experts to provide capacity strengthening and support, and how more decision-making agents are increasingly taking up evidence for their decision making at the country-level. But the presentations also highlighted overlaps and lack of contact among stakeholders, and the discussions noted in this regard the missed opportunities and missed synergies.

Based on requests from Member States and stakeholders, a team from WHO HGF and EMP with funding from the BMGF had been working on preparing the basic infrastructure of a network for coordinating activities among all stakeholders. Participants unanimously agreed that a network like this one is highly needed to support alignment and relevance of country activities, and many enthusiastically expressed their future intent for collaboration and participation in the network.

The new network’s name is Decide, the Health Decision hub, and this is its website. The website is the network’s online platform, a collaborative online space for meeting up and carrying out activities: sharing information, a repository of experts and tools, working groups, co-production of knowledge and activities, among others. The platform is just out there, it now needs its members to set up governance, financing, and management structures, and provide input into the platform to make it alive!

If you want to stay tuned, just keep checking Decide, as there is more to come!