INTEGRATE-HTA – VALIDATE

The VALIDATE approach is building on the insights of the (2013-2016) EU-funded project ‘Integrated health technology assessment for the evaluation of complex technologies’ (INTEGRATE-HTA), in which three VALIDATE consortium partners were also involved.

In order to be useful for decision-making, health technology assessments (HTAs) should explicitly consider the factors that make the intervention (or its context) complex and derive conclusions in a way that integrates across various outcomes. The INTEGRATE-HTA project set out to develop and apply methodological guidance on these issues. While the focus of the project was on HTA, most of the methodological guidance applies equally to systematic reviews.

The overarching product was the INTEGRATE-HTA model, a step-wise approach to conduct an integrated HTA. In a first step, stakeholder advisory panels are employed to scope the HTA. In a second step, the intervention and its implementation in context are conceptualized and structured based on a logic model and comprehensive framework patient preferences and possible modifiers of intervention effects are identified. In a third step, using a variety of methods, evidence is pulled together on effectiveness, economic, ethical, social and other aspects. In a fourth step, the evidence is inserted back into the logic model to visualize inter-relationships across all aspects and outcomes of the HTA. In a fifth step, the results are presented to facilitate decision-making. All INTEGRATE-HTA guidances are listed below and can be freely downloaded.