Patient Perspectives: An Integral Part of Health Technology Assessment Methodology

The article Patient-centered health technology assessment: a perspective on engagement in health technology assessment by three patient organizations and a health technology assessment body (20 October 2022) brings forth important considerations of vital patient engagement during health technology assessment (HTA), and specifically, with the value assessment review by the Institute for Clinical and Economic Review (ICER) of two lupus therapies. TheInnovationandValueInitiative(IVI)commendssomeofthepracticallearningsandapplauds the patient representatives ’ and ICER ’ s commitment to engagement throughout this review. However, this commitment needs to go beyond eliciting patient-important factors merely as inputs for “ contextual considerations. ” As one example, the authors noted the importance of factors such as “ patients ’ and caregivers ’ career goals