Health technology assessment in the Asia Pacific region.

Objectives: Although health technology assessment (HTA) has been well established in all developed countries, it has not found a firm footing in many developing countries. This is especially true of the Asia Pacific region, which has much of the world population.

Methods: The beginnings of HTA in this region go back to the work of Dr.

Health technology assessment in Malaysia.

Objectives: Malaysia, as a rapidly developing country, has been facing tremendous pressures in its attempts to maximize scarce resources. Despite this problem, Malaysia has made great strides in developing its health services, and has successfully provided good access to the population to healthcare services, reduced the incidence of many communicable diseases, and improved life expectancies and other global indices of health care, some of which are comparable to that of developed countries.

Methods: The Health Technology Assessment (HTA) Unit was set up in Malaysia in August 1995 in the Ministry of Health Malaysia and has since grown tremendously in size and resources.

A training course in health technology assessment in Malaysia.

This article describes a 1-week training course in health technology assessment (HTA) presented in Malaysia by the Ministry of Health in 1996. Malaysia established an HTA unit in the Ministry of Health in 1995 and a National Health Technology Assessment Program in 1996. The purpose of the course was to develop HTA knowledge and skills in Malaysia, since these are largely lacking.