(Reuters Health) – A new, small study suggests medicinal marijuana may impair users’ driving skills – but might be missed by typical sobriety tests.At doses used in AIDS, cancer and pain patients, people weaved side to side more and had a slower reaction time in the hours after using the drug, resea

The Food and Drug Administration ordered St. Jude Medical on Thursday to conduct additional studies on patients implanted with heart-device components that were recalled last year and that have been linked to as many as 20 deaths. It also recommended that patients receive X-rays or other imaging to

Executive Summary Digital health technology (DHT) offers the potential to expand universal health coverage (UHC) by answering healthcare needs through a wide range of technology applications for instance artificial intelligence, big data, and machine learning. The adoption of DHT is not a new con

Rhythma Kaul / Hindustand TimesNew Delhi: India announced the setting up of a Medical Technology Assessment Board (MTAB) that will be one-stop shop to review standards for medicines, vaccines, devices and insurance.The Board’s recommendations will be the last word for health policies and healthcare

(Reuters Health) – The short-term benefits of weight loss surgery are well known in severely obese people, but a new study finds that improvements in diabetes and blood pressure may hold up for years after the procedures.At six-year patient follow-ups, three quarters of people who’d undergone gastri

With HTA gaining ground as a tool for priority-setting globally, it comes as no surprise that, alongside many other questions on the development of the mechanism, countries are trying to find ways to adapt HTA to their particular healthcare system and context. Such was the case the HITAP team found

The attempt to provide public health insurance in Vietnam began since before the ‘Doi Moi’, an economic reform which happened in 1986, when health care activities were all supported by the government. After the reform, the structure of government support for health care changed to partial support. V

Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP), Ministry of Public Health through the International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI) has been working in Vietnam since 2014. iDSI has supported Ministry of Health (MOH) Vietnam in realising Universal Health Coverage (UHC) through a dif

Evidence-Based Decision-Making in Asia-Pacific with Rapidly Changing Health-Care Systems: Thailand, South Korea, and Taiwan. Thidaporn Jirawattanapisal1 Pritaporn Kingkaew2 Tae-Jin Lee3 Ming-Chin Yang4 1International Health Policy Program, Ministry of Public Health, Muang Nonthaburi,Thailand; 2

An aim of this study is to describe quantitatively and qualitatively progression and findings from the HTA topic selection process recently developed by HITAP. The process involves potential users of HTA information; namely (1) third party payers (public health insurers), (2) national health care program managers (Ministry of Public Health’s Depa