Health Technology Assessment and Clinical Epidemiology

HTA: health technology assessment

The systematic evaluation of using a health technology in a specific health service context, which examines the social, ethical, medical and economic implications. HTA is focused on the assessment of efficacy, efficiency, and cost effectiveness of health technology.

Atlas: health system research and hospital planning (http://www.nfp53.ch)

Hospital service areas (HSA) reflect travel patterns for hospital use in the Swiss population. The aim is to describe utilization of health care using health utilization indices and to geographically and demographically characterize HSA.

The localization index is the fraction of all discharges of HSA-residents that happened within their HSA. It indicates how localized care is provided within the HSA.

 

Project evaluation complementary medicine PEK   (http://www.pekswiss.ch/)

The Institute for Evaluative Research in Orthopedic Surgery obtained 2002 the mandate of the  Swiss Federal Office of Public Health to perform nationwide field studies to evaluate efficiency, risks, usefulness and economic efficiency of complementary and alternative medicine (CAM) in primary care in Switzerland. The Project should provide the scientific basis to permanently accept CAM-procedures in the catalogue of compulsory health plan coverage. More than 650 physicians performing conventional, complementary, or alternative primary care are being evaluated and compared. The data reveal profiles of experience, medical function, philosophy of care, outcomes and cost efficiency. Final results will be published in summer 2005.