Capacity constraints in Health Technology Assessment - value assessment of innovations in organ transplantation
PhD candidate: Lotte Staal
This PhD project explores how capacity constraints can be incorporated into Health Technology Assessment (HTA), with a focus on evaluating innovations in organ transplantation. While HTA traditionally assesses cost-effectiveness assuming unconstrained healthcare systems, real-world implementation of innovations is often limited by constraints such as operating room availability, hospital beds, staffing, and waiting lists.
Organ transplantation is a relevant case study for these challenges because of donor organ scarcity, consequent long wait times, and the often urgent nature of transplantation surgeries. New innovations within organ transplantation may therefore not only affect patient outcomes and costs, but also impact the functioning of the transplant and healthcare system itself.
This project aims to assess how capacity constraints influence the value of health innovations, while also examining how these innovations may affect the use and availability of healthcare resources. We examine this using case studies in heart and kidney transplantation, where we will evaluate innovations using health economic simulation models.
External supervisor: Dr. Olivier Manintveld, MD