Engaging the public in priority‐setting for health technology assessment: findings from a citizens’ jury

Abstract

Objectives To assess the feasibility of using a citizensÕ jury to elicit public values on health technologies and to develop criteria for setting priorities for health technology assessment (HTA).Methods Sixteen individuals were selected from 1600 randomly sampled residents of the Capital Health Region in Alberta, Canada. They participated in a 2½ day jury which comprised presentations by Ôexpert witnessesÕ, who represented innovators, patients, healthcare policy-makers and clinicians, as well as a series of small and large group priority-setting exercises based on actual examples of technologies that had recently been considered for assessment by local and national HTA bodies. The session was audio-taped, and transcripts were independently reviewed by two researchers using content analytical techniques in order to ensure that no important concepts expressed by individual jurors were missed during group development of the final list of priority-setting criteria. Jurors evaluated the process by completing self-administered, semi-structured questionnaires at the end of the session. Responses were analysed using qualitative methods.Results The jury identified 13 criteria, which they subsequently ranked in order of importance. The top two criteria included Ôpotential to benefit a number of peopleÕ and Ôextends life with qualityÕ. Based on feedback from questionnaires, jurors valued the opportunity to become engaged in such a process, and expressed interest in participating in future juries.Conclusions CitizensÕ juries offer a feasible approach to involving the public in priority-setting for HTA. Furthermore, technologies that may benefit a number of people and improve quality of life appear to be of greatest importance to the public.

Informing Public Health Policy Through Deliberative Public Engagement: Perceived Impact on Participants and Citizen–Government Relations

“…In particular, feelings of confidence to educate other citizens and a greater sense of community are consistent with other findings that deliberative processes can promote active citizenship and citizen empowerment in the broader community (Beierle, 1999;Goodin and Dryzek, 2006;Hartz-Karp, 2007;Menon and Stafinski, 2008;O'Doherty et al, 2012). This takes the short-term impact of the deliberative exercise beyond the immediate interests of those involved into the system or society as a whole.…”

Public views on principles for health care priority setting: Findings of a European cross-country study using Q methodology

“…Examples are NICE's citizens' councils in the UK (Littlejohns and Rawlins, 2009), the health parliament in Israel (Guttman et al, 2008), and representation in appraisal committees in Germany and the Netherlands (Gagnon et al, 2011). Some experiences with citizens' juries have also been reported (Menon and Stafinski, 2008;Mooney and Blackwell, 2004). This, however, will only do justice to the diversity of existing viewpoints if the people on those panels or committees indeed (are able to) reflect these viewpoints.…”

Serie de notas técnicas sobre procesos de priorización en salud: Nota 3: Análisis comparativo y lecciones aprendidas

“…Un caso que vale la pena de destacar es el de los jurados ciudadanos. Estos están compuestos por personas con conocimientos legales que escuchan las declaraciones de los expertos y emiten un veredicto (Menon y Stafinski 2008). A pesar de estas experiencias, algunos estudios señalan las deficiencias que aún persisten en la participación, como la falta de mediciones de su efecto sobre el proceso y la falta de estudios empíricos al respecto (Whitty 2013) (Christiaens, et.al., 2012) Se observa una tendencia hacia un involucramiento en todos los subprocesos de la priorización de una manera cada vez más formal e intensa (Whitty 2013) de las partes interesadas y del público en general, lo cual viene siendo facilitado cada vez más por los portales web.…”