Analysis of consumer comments into PBAC decision-making (2014-9).

Objectives: The Pharmaceutical Benefits Advisory Committee (PBAC) is an independent expert body that recommends new technologies for listing on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. Its decision-making process is evidence-based and considers a technology's clinical effectiveness, safety, and cost-effectiveness compared with other technologies. Since 2014, the PBAC has formally taken into account input from those impacted by the technology via an online consumer comments portal and has also reported on received comments in the Public Summary Documents (PSDs). Comments are welcomed from those whose health the technology is trying to improve, as well as carers, clinicians, and organizations. Our objective was to analyze and review consumer comments in the PBAC's decision-making process.

Methods: We extracted information about consumer comments from the PBAC PSDs from 2014-9. We conducted simple descriptive analyses.

Results: Our findings reveal that two thirds of all submissions did not receive a single consumer comment. Of the remaining third, eight submissions (less than 1 percent) had a substantial number of consumer comments (>500). For these technologies, multiple submissions were required before a recommendation was issued. Submissions spanned multiple therapeutic areas, the therapeutic areas with the most consumer comments were genetic disease, pediatrics, and oncology.

Conclusions: In the light of our review, we have identified limitations to the current consumer comments process, and after an examination of the processes of other comparable health technology assessment agencies, we have identified a number of improvements that could be made to the PBAC's process to increase consumer engagement.