医療テクノロジー・アセスメントのニーズ評価 : 開業医の認識と要望

Objective:
Healthcare technology assessment (HTA) plays an essential role to support decision making in both health policy and clinical practice. To identify needs for HTA among general practitionners in Japan, a questionnaire survey carried out.

Methods:
A questionnaire survey was carried out. The subjects were 42 members of a association of general practitionner at Osaka in Japan. The valid response (rate) was 33 (79%). A questionnaire consisted of two parts. The first part dealt with needs and benefits for HTA. The second part dealt with prioritization of HTA.

Results:
A proportion of respondents who strongly pointed out the need of assessment for clinical effectiveness, efficiency, and ethical problems was 69%, 38%, and 63%, respectively. The most frequently suggested organizations for HTA was medical and dental associations (27%). A high priority was given to medical procedures as a type of healthcare technologies (HTs). Frequently mentioned HTs for HTA were as follows ; gene therapy, cancer chemotherapy, organ tansplantation, cancer screening, minimally invasive therapy, emergency medicine and so on.

Conclusion :
Most general pracititionners in an associations in Osaka, Japan have great concerns for needs of HTA. HTs identified as candidates for HTA were gene therapy, cancer chemotherapy, organ tansplantation and so on. On the basis of these results, further evaluations and discussions on priority settings for HTA should be done.