History and structure
The Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program (HITAP) was established in 2007 as a non-profit organization, coming under the auspices of the International Health Policy Program (IHPP), under the Bureau of Policy and Strategy, Office of the Permanent Secretary of Ministry of Public Health. Its main responsibility is to assess the health intervention and technology assessment with the coverage of pharmaceuticals, medical devices, clinical practices, individual and community health promotions and disease prevention, as well as social health policy.
HITAP places emphasis on systemic, transparent work, which is in conformity with the current situation of Thailand’s health system. HITAP aims to cultivate the public interest and motivate the participation of all sectors in society in order to efficiently distribute and allocate the limited resources to fulfill the public objectives.
The organizational structure is consisted of the Program Leader, working closely with the Advisory Committee. As for the operational management, there are three divisions, including Administration, Academic and International Relations. Totally, 44 staffs  are government officials under the Ministry of Public Health, lecturers and researchers from universities and the direct employees of HITAP.


Mission
To efficiently and transparently appraise health interventions and technologies by using international, standard and qualified research methodologies;
To develop systems and mechanisms in order to promote the optimal selection, procurement and management of health technology as well as appropriate health policy determination;
To distribute research findings and educate the public in order to make the best use of health interventions and technology assessment results.


How HITAP works
HITAP employs four strategies to accomplish its goals, namely Strategy I: Research and development of a fundamental system for HTA, Strategy II: Capacity building for an HTA system, Strategy III: HTA model research, and Strategy IV: Research and development of appropriate structures and mechanisms for future HTA.


Dissemination activities
The dissemination of HITAP’s information and research works to the public will educate them and support the people’s participation in examining the government health care works, particularly the country’s health intervention and technology assessment. Moreover, both public and private institutions can utilize the disseminated findings. There are a wide variety of contents in the research programmes conducted within the organization. Accordingly, there are a lot of communication methods used to disseminate research findings to the target groups according to the objectives of each study; for example, publication in both Thai and international academic journals, oral presentations and poster presentations in both local and international conferences. Print media, including reports and leaflets as well as mass media (TV documentaries), are the communication channels to the general public. Importantly, presenting research results to decision makers is another channel for transferring research into policy.


Current projects

• Standard cost lists for health technology assessment
• Designing a decision frame for making health resource allocation decisions: a case study in
• Thailand
• Public Private Partnership in health sector: collaborative framework for Ministry of Public Health of Thailand and private sector
• The development of a database for health technology assessment in Thailand
• Economic evaluation trainings (basic and modelling courses)
• Development of organizational capacity and international HTA networks
• Cost-effective of chronic hepatitis B and C treatment
• Economic burden of life-time treatment cost, and quality of among invasive cervical cancer patients treated at university hospitals and cancercenters in Thailand
• Assessing the Feasibility and Appropriateness of Using PET-CT in Thailand
• Cost-effectiveness of chronic hepatitis B and C treatment
• Assessing Appropriateness and Value from Money of Herbal Medicine
• Assessing alternative measures for controlling drug prices
• Cost-effectiveness analysis of prenatal screening and diagnosis for Down's syndrome in Thailand
• Assessing the impact of health promotion interventions using social marketing strategies amongst
  construction and factory workers
• Economic evaluation of diagnostic options for pulmonary tuberculosis amongst HIV-infected patients in Thailand
• Economic evaluation and feasibility analysis of using three-drug antiretroviral regimens as the standard regimens for the prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV in Thailand
• The Evaluation of the Outcomes and the Determinants of the Cervical Cancer Screening Programme with Pap smear and Visual Inspection with Acetic Acid technique
• Economic evaluation and feasibility analysis of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) screening among school-age children
• Assessment high cost drugs section in the National List of Essential Medicines of Thailand
• Assessment of education program through public media for prevention of suicide
• Economic evaluation of prime-boost (ALVAC®-HIV and AIDSVAX®B/E) AIDS vaccine for the Thai population
• Economic evaluation of adjuvant therapy in patients with advance colon cancer
• The clinical efficacy and economic evaluation of EC-MPS (Myfortic®) in the treatment of relapse or resistant proliferative Lupus Nephritis
• Economic evaluation on pneumococcal conjugated vaccine in Thailand

Future plans    
Stepping on the 5th year in progress, HITAP gains more support and funding from various public institutions; namely the Thai Health Promotion Foundation, the Health Systems Research Institute, the Health Insurance System Research Office and the Bureau of Policy and Strategy, Ministry of Public Health. Apart from these, National Health Security Office has also considered HITAP as a resource. In the near future, HITAP are looking forward to enlarging and developing the organizational scale from a Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program to an institutional organization.