History and structure
The Institute for Medical Documentation and Information (DIMDI) is an institute within the German Federal Ministry of Health (BMG). Under the German Healthcare Structure Reform Act of 2000, DIMDI was ordered to implement and manage information related to Health Technology Assessment (HTA) and Evidence Based Medicine (EMB). For this mission the German Agency for HTA (DAHTA) at DIMDI was founded in 2000. The work of the Agency was strengthened by the Health Care Modernization Act 2003 (GMG), which moved the improvement of health care quality and a more efficient distribution of disposable financial means further into the centre of health care. A Scientific Advisory Board and a Board of Trustees support these efforts.

DIMDI has been a member of INAHTA since 1999.

Mission
The mission of DIMDI based on the Legal Basis: "DIMDI establishes and operates a database-supported information system to evaluate the efficacy and costs of medical procedures and technologies. The information system provides access to the relevant databases and and lists reviews and other material concerning the status of national and international scientific results in the field of medical technology assessment. Furthermore, DIMDI awards research assignments for the evaluation of medical procedures and technologies, and analyses  the results of these projects to integrate them into the information system." (Article 19 of the law regarding an information system for the evaluation of medical technology according to the Health Care Reform Act 2000)

How DAHTA works
DAHTA sees its main role in managing the HTA process with special regard to quality, reliability, and actuality. These skills and efforts are accompanied by special expertise in literature management and electronically based information systems.

DAHTA administrates its main role in managing the HTA process with special regard to quality, reliability, and actuality. These skills and efforts are accompanied by special expertise in literature management and electronically based information systems. DAHTA administrates a database which includes own edited HTA reports as well as national and internationational reports of different instututes (e. g. IQWIG, CADTH, NCCHTA)- tranlated in parts. DAHTA own edited HTA reports carry out assessments of medichal technologies from medical, economic, social and ethical points of view. They are prepared on the basis of standard operating procedure. The topics for the HTA reports can be entered pulicly into a database of topics via internet questionnaire. That means that everyone interested has a possibility to formulate HTA topics. Two times a yearHTA Board of Trusteeswhich represents decision making groups in German healthcare, arranges the topics corresponding to their impotance in health care by a standardized procedure (Delphi). Prioritized topics are commisiioned for the preparation of reports to collaborative scientific groups consisting of the disciplines necessary for HTA. For preparation of the reports a standardized quality assured process has to be followed. Development and control of this procedure is continually done by DAHTA. After a process of peer reviewthe finished reports are published for free via the DAHTA database, via the scientific journal series of HTA at German Medical Science (gms) and the journal gms HTA accessible via the website www.egms.de.
In order to maintain constant quality of HTA products DAHTA is working closely together with German scientific societies in the fields of medicine, health economy, statistics, biometry, medical informatics, public health, and EBM. A Scientific Advisory Board supports DAHTA with these efforts. Additionally the international collaboration, especially with INAHTA, HTAi and the European projects (ie EUnetHTA) give the base for an up-to date HTA process.

Dissemination activities
The DAHTA reports are dessiminated to defined target groups- health policy makers, clinicians and others. Additionally news are written and spread of. All reports and news are available on the internet at www.dimdi.de. The DAHTA database can be sarched in combination with the main medical literature databases (i.e. Medline, Embase, Cochrane, INAHTA, etc.) with the DIMDI retrieval system. All reports of the DAHTA database can be downloaded in full text exempt from charges. Accordingly the German Reports are published through the electronic journal German Medical Science (www.egms.de). There is additional information of international and national activities relevant to HTA on the website, too. Furthermore, there are meetings organized (ie the annual German HTA-Symposium) and workshops to give help to gain access to HTA information.

Current projects
Due to the HTA process and the process of prioritization the list of ongoing projects is changing continually. The current list can be found via the DIMDI website. Ongoing projects and finished reports are available via the HTA Database.

Future plans
DAHTA follows its mission further on.The DAHTA database is going to be extended and is continually optimized. More HTA reports with topics of diagnosis, therapy, screening, prevention and care with relevance to social health will be edited by DAHTA. For more information, please see our website at www.dimdi.de, link HTA.