TA in Biomedicine and Healthcare - from clinical evaluation to policy consulting

Abstract

In the light of the heavy media coverage of the race for sequencing the entire human genome in the last year and the expecta- tions and promises of a break through in medical treatment and diagnosis connected with the Human Genome Project (HGP), it can not come as a surprise that the Euro- pean Parliamentary Technology Assess- ment Network (EPTA) has chosen “TA in Biomedicine and Health Care” as subject for its Annual Conference in Berlin last year. But apart from its topicality the choice was also motivated by the growing impor- tance of Biomedicine and Healthcare issues in the work programmes of the EPTA or- ganisations in recent years. Parliamentary Technology Assessment as carried out by EPTA organisations always included TA on health care issues. This occupation of par- liamentary TA with Biomedicine and Health Care has however, remarkably enough, de- veloped in some distance from activities going on in what is internationally known as Health Technology Assessment (HTA). The choice of the conference subject thus also offers an opportunity to bring two perspec- tives on Health Technology – Parliamentary Technology Assessment (PTA) and Health Technology Assessment (HTA) together and see if (and if so how) these two per- spectives can learn from each other. The paper will give a brief overview over the field of TA in Biomedicine and Health Care as carried out by parliamentary TA institu- tions as well as by HTA institutions in order to identify those features both approaches have in common and some peculiarities of each approach to health care issues