Korea preparing to take charge as the leader of health technology assessment in Asia

Korea will be the first nation in the Northeast Asia region to host the 2013 Health Technology Assessment International Annual Meeting to be held in Seoul this June.

The Health Technology Assessment International Annual Meeting (HTAi hereafter), a world-renowned gathering in the field of health technology assessment, will be held at the COEX in Seoul for five days beginning June 15th.

The HTAi, an annual meeting that is held in rotation on each continent, is a place for exchanging information and discussing international cooperation regarding health technology assessment. Korea will be the *first host of the meeting in Northeast Asia.

Korea will be the second host in Asia following Singapore which hosted the 2009 HTAi.

The 2013 HTAi will be organized by the HTAi Seoul 2013 Local Organizing Committee (Chairman Om Youngjin; LOC hereafter) and the Ministry of Health and Welfare (Minister Chin Young), and will be sponsored by the National Evidence-based Healthcare Collaborating Agency (Chairman Lee Sunhee; NECA hereafter). It is scheduled to provide various programs under the theme “Evidence, Value and Decision making: Science of Art?”

Pre-conference workshops from June 15th to the 16th will deal with 15 subjects including the current status of health technology assessment in each country, cases of policy utilization, and assessment methodology.

Sir Michael Rawlins, the chairman of U.K.’s National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), will deliver a keynote speech during the conference to be held from June 17th to the 19th, review policy utilization of health technology assessment, and suggest visions of future health technology assessment.

Following the opening ceremony, the three-day conference will discuss the grounds of each country’s health technology assessment and related issues, social and cultural backgrounds, values of the various health technologies, and complex decision-making processes.

A panel session comprised of staff members from the Ministry of Health and Welfare, the Ministry of Food and Drug Safety, the NECA, and other related industries attending the conference will also discuss 33 subjects including the approval process of medical equipment, efficient ways of health technology assessment, growth forecast of health technology assessment, international changes in deciding insurance benefits based on health technology assessment, and the importance of health technology assessment in the field of alternative medicine.

In addition, a variety of research results regarding health technology assessment from in and outside Korea will be shared through 144 oral presentations and 355 exhibition posters.

“The HTAi will be a good chance for Korea to enhance its status of health technology assessment on the international stage, while also building up reliability for local health technology for its advance into foreign markets,” said LOC Chairman Om Youngjin.

“Asian countries including China and Japan which are not yet equipped with health technology assessment have expressed interest in benchmarking Korea’s great new health technology assessment system when they begin establishing their own respective assessment system,” said the NECA.

The NECA forecasts that Korea will soon position itself as a leading nation in health technology assessment and play a leading role in Asia.

Early-bird registration* will provide a discounted rate on registration fees until May 6th, so early registration is recommended. Details are available on the LOC website (www.htai2013.org). Early-bird registration offers an 18 to 20% discount.