AGREE – Appraisal and Guidlines Research and Evaluation
AGREE is an international collaboration of researchers and policy makers who seek to improve the quality and effectiveness of clinical practice guidelines by establishing a shared framework for their development, reporting, and assessment. The collaboration is comprimised of a core of European countries, ie, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom, as well as Canada, New Zealand and the USA.
Cochrane Collaboration
The Cochrane Collaboration is an international non-profit and independent organization, dedicated to providing up-to-date, accurate information about the effects of health care. It produces and disseminates systematic reviews of healthcare interventions and promotes the search for evidence in the form of clinical trials and other studies of interventions. The major product of the Collaboration is the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews which is published quarterly as part of The Cochrane Library.
Database of Abstracts of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE)
DARE contains summaries of systematic reviews which have met strict quality criteria. Each summary also provides a critical commentary on the quality of the review. DARE covers a broad range of healthcare-related topics and can be used for answering questions about the effects of healthcare interventions and for developing clinical guidelines and policy making. The INAHTA member CRD produces the database.
Health Evidence Network (HEN)
Health Evidence Network (HEN) is an information service primarily for public health and health care decision-makers in the European Region. There is a growing need for timely and relevant information for decision-making. The huge quantity of information and evidence available in the fields of public health and health care is dispersed among numerous databases and other sources. HEN makes it easier for decision-makers and other interested parties to get rapid access to much of this information in one place. INAHTA is pleased to be a partner of HEN in a joint effort to produce and implement evidence on important health policy issues.
Agencias y Unidades de Evaluación de Tecnologías Sanitarias (AUnETS)
AUNETS is the association of the Spanish HTA agencies and units to improve their coordination and representativeness in the Spanish National Health Care System. Althought AUNETS is not regulated by organizational by-laws, its is displayed through the web site. It is an interesting platform because it contains more than two hundred HTA reports and projects comissioned by the Spanish Ministry of Health as a result of the Spanish Quality Plan for the National Health Care System.
Health Services Technology Assessment Texts (HSTAT) guidelines
HSTAT is a free, Web-based resource of full-text documents that provide health information and support healthcare decisionmaking. HSTAT’s audience includes healthcare providers, health service researchers, policy makers, payers, consumers, and the information professionals who serve these groups.
HTA on the Net
This guide focuses on Internet sites useful for people involved in HTA research in Alberta, Canada, but HTA on the Net also incorporates data from other sources. These may include specialized bibliographic databases relevant to the subject of the assessment, data from government and regulatory sources, hospital administrative databases, industry studies, and advice from experts in the field. The INAHTA member AHFMR produces the guide.
HEN – Health Evidence Network
HEN is an information service for public health and healthcare decisionmakers in the European Region. Additional users include informed and interested citizens. The Network is a new project initiated and coordinated by the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Europe. HEN works with several agencies and organizations to provide evidence for decisionmakers. INAHTA is pleased to be a partner of HEN in a joint effort to produce and implement evidence on important health policy issues.
MEDLINE / PubMed
PubMed, a service of the U.S. National Library of Medicine, includes over 14 million citations for biomedical articles back to the 1950s. These citations are from MEDLINE and additional life science journals. PubMed includes links to many sites providing full-text articles and other related resources.
MEDLINE is the National Library of Medicine’s premier bibliographic database covering the fields of medicine, nursing, dentistry, veterinary medicine, the healthcare system, and the preclinical sciences. Medline contains bibliographic citations and author abstracts from more than 4600 biomedical journals published in the US and 70 other countries.
NHS Economic Evaluation Database
The NHS EED database is funded by the Department of Health and managed by staff based at the INAHTA member CRD. Abstracts are commissioned by the staff at CRD from health economists around the world.
Swiss Network of HTA Organizations (SNHTA)
SNHTA is the Swiss network of HTA organizations. All Swiss parties interested in HTA can become SNHTA-members if they meet the requirements as stated in the By-Laws. SNHTA aim to contribute to improve effectiveness, cost effectiveness and societal accountability of health care in Switzerland. The objectives are 1) To promote HTA projects; 2) Together, exchange and disseminate, expertise and reports; 3) To avoid double track work through cooperation in order to make optimal use of the limited resources for HTA; 4) To cooperate in international HTA networks and projects; and 5) At a later stage, t pool the Swiss HTA expertise of all members in order to realize joint Swiss HTA projects. The INAHTA member HTA-SFOPH (Health Technology Unit, Swiss Federal Office of Public Health) is hosting the SNHTA Secretariat.