Joint Curriculum Development in Health Technology Assessment Erasmus Project

Project Title

Joint Curriculum Development in Health Technology Assessment

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for higher education

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: International cooperation, international relations, development cooperation; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

Considering the increase in average life expectancy, use of health technologies, and increasing health care expenditures in developing countries, health technology assessment (HTA) is a useful tool to make rational economic and political decisions in healthcare. In the public and private sectors as well as academia, there is a lack of qualified personnel who are able to understand, conduct and use HTA research. In addition there is a need for programs that provide individuals professional excellence in this field to build human resource capacity in Eastern Europe and other developing countries.

In this context, the main objective of this project is to develop a joint international curriculum in order to guide both partner institutions and other higher education institutions interested in HTA to revise and strengthen their programs addressing human resource need of developing countries in Europe and its neighborhood.

There are 5 partner institutions in this project, which are Eotvos Lorand University (ELTE, Hungary), Liverpool University (UK), Medical University of Warsaw (Poland), Medical University of Sofia (Bulgaria) and Hacettepe University (Turkey, Applicant Organization). In addition to their strong academic background and experience on health technology assessment, they have a motivation to contribute to economic development and human capacity building at national and regional level.

In this project three main activities are planned to perform; i) sectoral and prospective students need analysis, ii) course and curriculum development, iii) adapting, developing and testing of teaching methods and materials. As a result of these activities, two intellectual outputs will be created; sectoral need analysis and joint curriculum design for HTA education, and they will be disseminated to stakeholders (academicians, universities, public and private sector bodies, and students).

In order to carry out those project activities, sectoral need analysis will be conducted by performing focus group discussions with stakeholders and student surveys in partner countries and program competencies will be determined according to the sectoral education needs in the field of HTA in developing countries.

In the second phase of the study, courses meeting these program competencies are determined in the ongoing programs in partner institutions, new courses are developed if needed, and their teaching methods and materials revised/developed in the light of effective teaching methods in the literature.
Finally, courses and teaching methods adapted/developed will be tested with pilot study in partner institutions to see their effectiveness to reach educational aims, and satisfaction of participants (students and academicians) from the courses.

The intellectual outputs of the project (sectoral need analysis, and joint curriculum) will be a guide for stakeholders interested in human capacity building in the field of HTA. Public and private institutions in the healthcare sector involving in HTA policy and implementation benefit from the sectoral need analysis in order to hire appropriate personnel for their HTA departments. In addition, partner universities participated in this project will find an opportunity to revise their ongoing masters programmes according to the educational needs of sectors and enhance quality of higher education in their countries, and to develop an international joint masters program targeting Eastern Europe and neighbour developing countries.

In the long run the joint curriculum developed will provide a basis to build human resource capacity that public and private sectors and academia need in HTA field and to create communication and collaborations between institutions, sectors and nations both inside and outside the Europe.

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 261029 Eur

Project Coordinator

HACETTEPE UNIVERSITESI & Country: TR

Project Partners

• WARSZAWSKI UNIWERSYTET MEDYCZNY
• THE UNIVERSITY OF LIVERPOOL
• EOTVOS LORAND TUDOMANYEGYETEM
• MEDICAL UNIVERSITY SOFIA