History
Like many other countries, Switzerland is confronted with a steady increase of health care costs. To address this problem the Swiss Federal Council started to promote HTA. HTA intends to help decisions makers to optimize health care spending decisions.
Since the early 1980ies, the Medical Technology Unit of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (MTU of SFOPH) started using HTA methodologies. Within Switzerland various universities, healthcare organizations, associations, societies and institutes started activities in the field of HTA. In 1999, the Swiss Network of HTA (SNHTA) was created to combine all these various national HTA expertise. Governmental agencies, universities, university hospitals, healthcare associations, cantonal authorities and other institutions dealing with HTA were invited to join the network, provided they meet the requirements as stated in the By-Laws.
The role of HTA was further promoted by the Swiss Federal Council’s Health2020 Initiative, which enabled the installation of an additional separate unit devoted to HTA, within the Federal Office of Public Health in 2017.
SNHTA's purposes are:
The overall aim of the SNHTA is to improve effectiveness, cost effectiveness and societal accountability of health care in Switzerland.
Since the early 1980ies, the Medical Technology Unit of the Swiss Federal Office of Public Health (MTU of SFOPH) started using HTA methodologies. Within Switzerland various universities, healthcare organizations, associations, societies and institutes started activities in the field of HTA. In 1999, the Swiss Network of HTA (SNHTA) was created to combine all these various national HTA expertise. Governmental agencies, universities, university hospitals, healthcare associations, cantonal authorities and other institutions dealing with HTA were invited to join the network, provided they meet the requirements as stated in the By-Laws.
The role of HTA was further promoted by the Swiss Federal Council’s Health2020 Initiative, which enabled the installation of an additional separate unit devoted to HTA, within the Federal Office of Public Health in 2017.
SNHTA's purposes are:
- to promote HTA-projects
- to gather, exchange and disseminate information, expertise and reports
- to avoid double track work through cooperation in order to make optimal use of limited resources available for HTA
- to cooperate in international HTA-networks and projects
- at a later stage, to pool the Swiss HTA-expertise of all members in order to realize joint Swiss HTA-projects
The overall aim of the SNHTA is to improve effectiveness, cost effectiveness and societal accountability of health care in Switzerland.