Healthcare technology assessment of medical imaging technology

This chapter provides a view of how due to the health systems and technologies development in the last century a series of functions have been developed to achieve an optimal health for the entire population with available resources. Considering the particularities of the imaging technology area, the authors describe in what manner the value of these technologies should be defined, what are the approaches proposed for assessing this value, both by academia and by several institutions and finally by looking specifically at the SPARTACUS case an approach to compare two diagnostic modalities in terms of their impact on patient outcome is described. The author’s description of the SPARTACUS project is particularly informative. The results of this project made the authors concluding that, although RCT are not commonly used in the context of evaluating diagnostic tests, its use allows for the assessment of a wider scope of outcomes that are arguably relevant from an HTA perspective.