During recent months we have continued to advance our health technology assessment work across a diverse range of areas including publicly-funded services for fertility preservation, an alternative national emergency phone service for acute but non-urgent medical care, and a public consultation on updated guidelines for health technology assessments.
We published the terms of reference for a health technology assessment (HTA) of an alternative to the 112/999 national emergency phone line in August. The proposed alternative phone service would address acute, non-urgent medical care needs of the public. Our assessment will look into the budget impact and organisational implications of an alternative national phone line.
Speaking about the assessment, Dr Conor Teljeur, our Chief Scientist, said: “An alternative telephone service would enable people to speak with a trained operator who would triage the caller and provide self-care advice or direct them to the appropriate healthcare services. Our assessment will look at the implications for service users and the healthcare system of introducing such an alternative phone line.”
The protocol document is available on our website and the full HTA will be published in due course.
We also published a summary of publicly-funded services for fertility preservation for medical reasons across selected countries. The report aims to support the development of a national fertility preservation policy in Ireland.
Fertility preservation is the cryopreservation, or freezing, of eggs, sperm, embryos or reproductive tissue, so that a person can use them to have biological children in the future.
As part of this assessment, we reviewed documents concerning publicly-funded fertility preservation services in 10 countries.
The review found that the freezing of sperm and eggs is publicly funded in all 10 selected countries; that people undergoing cancer treatment are offered fertility preservation in all of the selected countries; publicly funded freezing of sperm and eggs is typically offered to adults and adolescents and that, while less commonly publicly funded, the freezing of ovarian tissue and testicular tissue may be offered to particular groups of people.
Michelle O’Neill, HIQA’s Deputy Director of Health Technology Assessment, noted that the review provides insights into what publicly-funded fertility preservation services in other countries provide, eligibility, and considerations around how these services are delivered.
The full report and protocol is available on our website.
We launched a public consultation on 21 October, asking members of the public for their feedback on updated guidelines for economic evaluations and budget impact analysis in health technology assessments.
HTAs are used to help decide which health technologies should be used and funded in the public healthcare system in Ireland. Economic evaluations and budget impact analyses are often carried out as part of a HTA.
Speaking about the updated guidelines, Dr Máirín Ryan, HIQA’s Deputy CEO and Director of Health Technology Assessment said: “These guidelines explain how economic evaluations and budget impact analyses in HTA should be done in Ireland. We developed these guidelines with the support of scientific advisory groups, including patients, researchers, policy-makers, people from industry, doctors and other experts. Their input was is important to make sure that the guidelines are fair and of high quality, which in turn helps inform healthcare decision-making and supporting safer, better healthcare.”
The draft updated guidelines, a survey and details of how to take part in the consultation are available on our website. The consultation will remain open until 5pm on Monday, 2 December 2024.