Health technology assessment is a multidisciplinary field of policy analysis, which takes into account medical, economical, social, ethical, legal and organizational aspects of development, distribution or use of medical technology. In the last thirty years in some parts of the world, such as Europe and North America, it has become mandatory in the policy and health decisions. In recent years, HTA has spread rapidly in regions such as Latin America and Asia. Countries are contributing to the development of the field by establishing unity based on cultural and geographical proximity. In 2015, Eurasian HTA Initiative was established with the leadership of Turkish Evidence Based Medicine Society and included the countries extending from Balkans to Central Asia that are thought to be new, but promising for development of HTA.
The Eurasian HTA Initiative has organized two meetings since its establishment. The kick-off meeting was organized in Ankara, in March 2015 with participation of the following countries: Azerbaijan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Montenegro, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Turkey. The second meeting was organized in Istanbul, in November 2015 with participation of above-mentioned countries except Azerbaijan. Albania also joined the meeting as a new member and Tunisia as an observer country.
The members were representatives of Ministries of Health or other Governmental Agencies in their countries and had extensive experience in quality improvement, EBM and/or HTA. They had backgrounds in medicine, pharmacy, nursing, management or economics with additional trainings on health policy, management, quality improvement, health economics and/or HTA.
