by Julija Stoniute
HTAi’s 14th Annual Meeting took place in Rome, Italy from 18th to 21st of June this year. This was my first HTAi meeting and it made a great impression.
To start with, over a thousand delegates from different countries and institutions attended the conference. It was fascinating to meet such a wide variety of professionals from academic, governmental and private organisations. They were all friendly, supportive and keen to share their interests and ideas. The impressive Gala dinner held in one of the most breath-taking places in Rome made the networking experience even more enjoyable.
What is more, the range of topics and the number of high quality sessions at the conference was excellent. I particularly enjoyed the plenary session on the second day which was about utilising big datasets in health care. The speakers discussed issues such as minimal data collection to change clinical practice, data consolidation and common data frameworks across countries. This gave me a valuable insight into the complex processes involved in standardising health care information on a global level.
Lastly, I had an opportunity to present the findings from one of our recent projects on interventional management of hyperhidrosis. I delivered a short vignette-format presentation on the results of a clinical survey on different treatments of hyperhidrosis (excessive sweating). The main objectives of the survey were to inform economic model inputs and gain understanding of the current clinical practice. I took the opportunity to explain how clinical surveys can be a valuable tool to inform economic evaluations as well as clinical guidelines. I received great feedback as well as valuable suggestions on how such data collection methods could be improved.
Overall, I think the HTAi’s 14th Annual Meeting was a great success. I am incredibly grateful for the opportunity to attend!