Implementing health technology assessment in Ghana to support universal health coverage: Building relationships that focus on people, policy, and process

Samantha Hollingworth, Martha Gyansa-Lutterodt, Lydia Dsane-Selby, Justice Nonvignon, Ruth Lopert, Mohamed Gad, Francis Ruiz, Sean Tunis, Kalipso Chalkidou

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articlepeer-review

22 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Ghana is one of the few African countries to enact legislation and earmark significant funding to establish universal health coverage (UHC) through the National Health Insurance Scheme, although donor funds have declined recently. Given a disproportionate level of spending on medicines, health technology assessment (HTA) can support resource allocation decisions in the face of highly constrained budgets, as commonly found in low-resource settings. The Ghanaian Ministry of Health, supported by the International Decision Support Initiative (iDSI), initiated a HTA study in 2016 to examine the cost-effectiveness of antihypertensive medicines. We aimed to summarize key insights from this work that highlights success factors beyond producing purely technical outputs. These include the need for capacity building, academic collaboration, and ongoing partnerships with a broad range of experts and stakeholders. By building on this HTA study, and with ongoing interactions with iDSI, HTAi, WHO, and others, Ghana will be well positioned to institutionalize HTA in resource allocation decisions and support progress toward UHC.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)8-11
Number of pages4
JournalInternational Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care
Volume36
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2020

Keywords

  • Capacity building
  • Ghana
  • Health technology assessment
  • Universal health coverage

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