How to do Patient Engagement in Rapid-Cycle HTA

“Health technology assessment” is a type of analysis that provides information on the costs and benefits of various health technologies and services. One recent advance in health technology assessment has been the involvement of patients or public members in providing insight into the use of the given technology or service, as well as the relevant outcomes from such use.

This study examined how members of the public can best be engaged in these types of assessments, particularly in cases where there is a timeline of 100 days or less from project initiation to completion.

There are many challenges in obtaining meaningful public involvement in such a short timeline, but our study resulted in a detailed tool, in the form of a series of questions, to guide a given research team in this activity.