Health Technology Assessment (HTA)

Community Pharmacists in Europe play a crucial role in the collection, analysis and synthesis of “real-world evidence” concerning pharmaceuticals, medical devices, healthcare technologies and public health interventions. PGEU promotes the use of data collected in daily practice by pharmacists to create real-world evidence in the context of HTA in primary healthcare settings.

Community pharmacies have developed the necessary infrastructure to collect evidence to implement innovative technologies and services with the ultimate goal of delivering significant benefits to the public. 100% of pharmacies in Europe are computerised, 100% have internet connection and many utilise electronic pharmacy management programmes. Dispensing, reimbursement and ePrescription data is securely collected and stored in pharmacy management programmes and supplied to relevant national authorities where necessary. This data could be further exploited to support HTA.

PGEU is actively engaged in EU initiatives which promote cooperation in HTA at EU level such as EUnetHTA’s Joint Action. The current EUnetHTA Joint Action 3 (2016-2020) involves 78 organisations from 29 countries. In 2017 PGEU responded to the Public consultation on HTA launched by the European Commission. In its response, PGEU supported voluntary cooperation on HTA.

All Policies