TY - JOUR

T1 - IMPLEMENTING HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS IN FINLAND

T2 - MANAGED UPTAKE OF MEDICAL METHODS

AU - Sihvo, Sinikka

AU - Ikonen, Tuija

AU - Mäkelä, Marjukka

PY - 2017

Y1 - 2017

N2 - Objectives: The Managed Uptake of Medical Methods Program (MUMM) started 10 years ago as a joint venture of the Finnish Office for Health Technology Assessment (Finohta) and the twenty hospital districts in Finland. The aim is to offer information on the effectiveness, safety, organizational effects, and costs of new medical methods to support decisions concerning their uptake in secondary care. In this article, we discuss the successes and challenges of implementing the MUMM program.Methods: A study of awareness and use of five MUMM recommendations for various medical specialties with short-form web-based surveys to hospitals.Results: The recommendations were noticed and considered relevant. In overall assessment they received a mean rating of 8.4 (range: 4 to 10). Two thirds of the respondents thought MUMM recommendations were useful for practice, but only a third had actually used them in decision making.Conclusions: HTA-based MUMM recommendations were well received by physicians but in practice they are less used than clinical practice guidelines. Short-form electronic surveys were a useful way of gathering information about awareness and implementation. The surveys also functioned as another method of informing key physicians about the recommendations.

AB - Objectives: The Managed Uptake of Medical Methods Program (MUMM) started 10 years ago as a joint venture of the Finnish Office for Health Technology Assessment (Finohta) and the twenty hospital districts in Finland. The aim is to offer information on the effectiveness, safety, organizational effects, and costs of new medical methods to support decisions concerning their uptake in secondary care. In this article, we discuss the successes and challenges of implementing the MUMM program.Methods: A study of awareness and use of five MUMM recommendations for various medical specialties with short-form web-based surveys to hospitals.Results: The recommendations were noticed and considered relevant. In overall assessment they received a mean rating of 8.4 (range: 4 to 10). Two thirds of the respondents thought MUMM recommendations were useful for practice, but only a third had actually used them in decision making.Conclusions: HTA-based MUMM recommendations were well received by physicians but in practice they are less used than clinical practice guidelines. Short-form electronic surveys were a useful way of gathering information about awareness and implementation. The surveys also functioned as another method of informing key physicians about the recommendations.

KW - HTA

KW - Implementation

KW - Knowledge transfer

KW - Decision making

KW - Guidelines

U2 - 10.1017/S0266462317000587

DO - 10.1017/S0266462317000587

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 28703090

VL - 33

SP - 430

EP - 433

JO - International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care

JF - International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care

SN - 0266-4623

IS - 4

ER -