Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son delivered the opening speech

Speaking at the opening of the Conference, Deputy Minister of Health Nguyen Truong Son said: Currently, in many countries around the world, the evaluation of medical technology in general and the assessment of pharmaceutical economics in particular have been considered an important tool for health policy setting and prioritization, especially in the development of health insurance benefit packages for drugs. In Vietnam, as health resources become increasingly scarce, and the health insurance fund has to cover more and more health services, health technology assessments, especially pharmaceutical economics assessments need to be promoted and applied in the process of health policy formulation, planning, management and clinical practice.

During the process of developing the List of drugs within the scope of beneficiaries of health insurance issued together with Circular No. 30/2018 / TT-BYT, the Ministry of Health requires that units must provide assessment reports on budget impact and incentive to provide evidence proving cost and effectiveness of medicines for which were proposed to be added to the List; proposed to expand the rate, payment conditions, and used disease category. As a result, safe and effective drugs have been selected to meet the treatment needs, ensuring the benefits of health insurance participants and being affordable for the health insurance fund.

At the conference, national and international experts shared the results of the application of evidence of medical technology assessment, especially the application of economic and pharmaceutical assessment in developing the list of health insurance drugs; at the same time, discussing plans and orientations for developing health insurance drug policies in Vietnam in the coming time; especially the use of medical technology evaluation evidence to make decisions.

Accordingly, experts recommend that in order to apply evidence in developing health insurance drug policies in Vietnam, relevant ministries, industries and agencies should: Create guidance on health technology assessment; guide the preparation of pharmaceutical economic analysis reports; guide the evaluation of pharmaceutical economic analysis reports; ensure the data used in the pharmacy economics evaluation report, etc.

In addition, consideration should also be given to the methods of setting priorities and allocating funds for different drug and disease categories; Set a willingness to pay threshold according to disease level; Financial mechanism for critical illnesses; Application of cost and effectiveness analysis, impact assessment of budgets besides disease burden and real medical evidence in planning and decision-making processes, etc.