In the death of Professor Sir Mike David Rawlins, founding chairman of the National Institute for Health and Care Excellent (NICE), who passed away at 81, the world of health and social care guidance and medicine evaluation community has lost one of its greatest leaders.
Over his professional and remarkable career, he was a true vanguard who spent years to advocate the development, innovation, and leadership in public health. In the contribution towards the health technology assessment (HTA) community, he never seized to encourage the augmentation of cost-effectiveness treatment to provide the best quality of care and to promote access to health care and equity for all.
During his public lecture on “Optimising health care in the UK National Health Service: Balancing quality and efficiency”, as part of the PMAC conference in January 2013, he mentioned that HTA has been used differently in many settings; some employ full HTA with decision-making powers; some use full HTA without decision-making powers; and some use partial HTA without considerations of cost. At NICE, full HTA has been employed and not only uses HTA for making decision on health investments but are for clinical guidelines to enhance the quality of care and efficiency in the methods used to diagnose, treat, and prevent disease and ill health. Although HTA has already played a crucial role in setting healthcare priorities in the UK, there is still the need to evolve and improve, as there is no system with a perfect approach. It is also important to learn from one another to create systematic process; and endorsing a transparent appraisal process all together.
His words remain imprinted in our hearts, and it is important for us, as a HTA researcher, to tackle the problems and take on the challenges to innovate excellent HTA with social impact towards healthy society with high-quality evidence that will ultimately promote the quality of life of all people in the long run.
Useful links:
A TERRIBLE BEAUTY: A SHORT HISTORY OF NICE THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE FOR HEALTH AND CARE EXCELLENT
[Teaser] Equity in Distribution of Health Care Resources
Image source: The Royal Society of Medicine
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