Search:

About the Program

Purpose

The primary purpose of HTA is to ensure medical treatments and services paid for with state health care dollars are safe and proven to work. HTA serves as a resource for state agencies purchasing health care. HTA contracts for scientific, evidence-based reports about whether certain medical devices, procedures, and tests are safe and work as promoted. An independent clinical committee of health care practitioners then uses the reports to determine if programs should pay for the medical device, procedure, or test.

Participating state agencies include the Health Care Authority; Department of Social and Health Services (Medicaid); Labor and Industries; Department of Corrections; and Department of Veterans Affairs. State agencies using the same, evidence-based reports make more informed and consistent coverage decisions.

Mandate

• Promote excellent health care by investigating what works.
• Contract for impartial, peer reviewed evidence-based reports to support better decision making.
• Use the expertise of an independent committee of practicing health care providers to review the reports and make health care coverage decisions.
• Maintain an open process for nominations of health technologies and information gathering about selected technologies.
• Support a centralized location for state agencies to share information on other health care coverage decisions.
• Select six technologies in the first year and eight technologies in the second year for study and coverage decision.

Background / Problem Statement

New innovations in medicine, even in the last ten years, have improved the health and lives of patients, yet they have come at a high cost in terms of health, safety, and affordability. Health care spending and costs are rising dramatically, but patients in the U.S. are not getting healthier nor using health care that is available, recommended, and proven to work. Medical products and treatments are introduced without independent, scientific evidence about whether they are safe, effective, and provide benefits that are better than existing alternatives. The information age has compounded the problem – there is a flood of information, but doctors and patients don’t have the tolls or the time to sort through it all.

This overload of information, combined with a lack of tools to understand or test the information’s reliability has led many health care professionals to turn to evidence-based medicine to identify best practices in treatment and diagnosis as well as payment and coverage decisions.

HTA is leading the state effort to use evidence-based medicine to make health policy and coverage decisions. HTA expects the following benefits when using information based on science to make decisions about health care coverage:

• Better health - Washington patients and providers have access to a centralized place to learn about proven health care.
• Transparency - the technology selection, evaluation, and committee decisions follows a published process and are open to public input.
• Eliminates bias - neither the state agency payer nor a company selling products makes the decision, but all can provide information.
• Consistency - state agencies will be relying on a single, scientifically based source, to inform coverage decisions on the selected technologies.
• Evolving and flexible - technical innovations occur regularly, and evidence-based reports are also reviewed regularly to ensure that the latest information has been considered.