Article type
Year
Abstract
Introduction: Health Technology Assessment (HTA) can be useful to inform decision-makers about the introduction, use, and dissemination of health technologies. The Institute of Clinical Effectiveness and Health Policy (IECS) is an independent Argentinean academic institution, which for more than 10 years has produced HTAs for a consortium of public, social security and private healthcare organizations in Latin-American (LA). Evidence about decision-makers’ perceptions and use pattern of HTAs in LA is scarce.
Objectives: To explore the knowledge, attitudes, practices and expectations of decision-makers that use the HTA reports produced by IECS.
Methods: Qualitative research will be carried out using focus groups and complemented with an online survey. Focus group participants will be purposively selected by the research team from different institutions that may differ in kind (social security-private), size and geographical areas. Data collection will be carried out during a regular national consortium meeting that decision makers will attend. At least three groups with six to eight participants will be done, data collection will continue until informational saturation is reached. A semi-structured guideline will explore the following domains regarding HTA documents:
- knowledge;
- attitudes (barriers and facilitators in their use);
- usage patterns (frequency of queries, how, when and why they are consulted, from which medium, which sections are used);
- expectations (preferences, needs and requirements).
The focus group will be audiotaped and transcribed verbatim in preparation for the analysis. Qualitative data will be analyzed using thematic analysis. Data codes will be developed based on the themes from the guide and supplemented by additional codes identified by using a grounded theory-based approach to capture emergent themes. Atlas-TI Version 7, will be used to support the analysis.
The qualitative approach will inform the development of a survey to be applied nationwide to all consortium members. Descriptive statistics will be used to analyze frequencies of the survey.
Results: Results will be presented at the Colloquium
Objectives: To explore the knowledge, attitudes, practices and expectations of decision-makers that use the HTA reports produced by IECS.
Methods: Qualitative research will be carried out using focus groups and complemented with an online survey. Focus group participants will be purposively selected by the research team from different institutions that may differ in kind (social security-private), size and geographical areas. Data collection will be carried out during a regular national consortium meeting that decision makers will attend. At least three groups with six to eight participants will be done, data collection will continue until informational saturation is reached. A semi-structured guideline will explore the following domains regarding HTA documents:
- knowledge;
- attitudes (barriers and facilitators in their use);
- usage patterns (frequency of queries, how, when and why they are consulted, from which medium, which sections are used);
- expectations (preferences, needs and requirements).
The focus group will be audiotaped and transcribed verbatim in preparation for the analysis. Qualitative data will be analyzed using thematic analysis. Data codes will be developed based on the themes from the guide and supplemented by additional codes identified by using a grounded theory-based approach to capture emergent themes. Atlas-TI Version 7, will be used to support the analysis.
The qualitative approach will inform the development of a survey to be applied nationwide to all consortium members. Descriptive statistics will be used to analyze frequencies of the survey.
Results: Results will be presented at the Colloquium