IMPLEMENTING HEALTH TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT-BASED RECOMMENDATIONS IN FINLAND: MANAGED UPTAKE OF MEDICAL METHODS

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

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.
Original languageEnglish
JournalInternational Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care
Volume33
Issue number4
Pages (from-to)430-433
Number of pages3
ISSN0266-4623
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2017

    Research areas

  • HTA, Implementation, Knowledge transfer, Decision making, Guidelines

ID: 188454770