Evidence-based medicine and health technology assessments

Abstract

Evidence based medicine (EBM) is thetransparent and rational use of the best evidence available to make decisionsabout patient care. Today, health care has become more complicated andexpensive, patient demands have increased and EBM is needed to obtain optimalresults, to reduce the differences across clinical practices, to provide highquality services and to promote an efficient and cost-effective health careculture. Evidence based medicine practices concern the health policy makers aswell as clinicians. As evidence based medicine gained importance in the fieldof health policy making the concept of “Evidence Based Health Policy” hasemerged. This intent of this concept is for health politicians to moderate thepurposes, methods and contents of health care offered to the public, to makedecisions between alternatives considering up-to-date information andconsidering the setting, and to identify and announce political goals thatbenefit the public. Today it serves as an important means of identifyingevidence based health policies and assessing health technologies.In this review, the definition,components, and grounds for evidence based medicine will be discussed, andhealth technology assessment which is one of the most important instruments ofevidence based health policies will be examined.

Keywords

• kanıta dayalı tıp
• sağlık teknolojilerinin değerlendirilmesi
• sağlık politikası
• evidence based medicine
• health technology assessment
• health policy