Health Technology Assessment of Medical Devices: The Canadian Experience

Abstract

In Canada, health care decision-making and priority setting are decentralized and occur at various levels in the health care system. Most reimbursement coverage decisions for market-approved medical devices in Canada are done in hospitals within constraints of their annual budget. Canadian HTA bodies exist at the national, provincial, and regional/hospital levels to reflect the decentralized decision making structure. HTAs are conducted for a small number of new medical devices entering the market. HTA organizations in Canada are faced with several limited number of new medical devices entering the market. The pan-Canadian Health Technology Assessment Collaborative was formed in 2011 to share best practices, mitigate the risk of duplication of effort through information sharing, and to identify and participate in joint initiatives in the HTAs of medical devices, procedures and diagnostics. HTA organizations in Canada are faced with numerous challenges. They include, but are not limited to, costly health technologies entering the market at a fast pace, while health care budgets experience pressures given a number of factors, such as economic down turn, aging population, and increasing consumer demand.