EUnetHTA Adaptation Glossary (beta)

Context and setting both refer to the place and time from which the evidence for the HTA report has come and/or in which the HTA report will be used. Time and place are both important dimensions of context/setting, as are level (national, regional, local), the kind of decision being made.

‘Setting’ in particular is commonly used in HTA to refer narrowly to an organizational dimension of health care, such as primary, secondary or tertiary care, or community care.

Issue

The purpose of adaptation is to enable an HTA agency in one country (or region or setting) to make use of an HTA report produced elsewhere, thus saving time and money. This sounds simple but in reality, the adaptation process is complex.

The idea behind the term “applicability“ is related to the general idea of adaptation because the application of foreign HTA reports is only possible if an adaptation is possible and worth the effort.

Application as a Task

Affordability is the capability to allocate financial funds to an individual or societal need. Thus, we see a need to differ between a society’s capability to afford a health technology and the individual capability to afford a health technology which is not financed by the health care system / health insurance. The affordability is closely related to the idea of choice. Affordability has different degrees, depending on the allocation and trade-offs.