Thursday: a pick from parallel session Education and professional development

Therese Svanberg and Eva Alopaeus (Sweden): The library's role in a hospital-based HTA centre - experiences from Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Sweden

Health technology assessment or HTA in short is defined by INAHTA as "the systematic evaluation of properties, effects, and/or impacts of health care technology. It may address the direct, intended consequences of technologies as well as their indirect, unintended consequences. Its main purpose is to inform technology-related policymaking in health care. HTA is conducted by interdisciplinary groups using explicit analytical frameworks drawing from a variety of methods."

The HTA unit in Sahlgrenska University Hospital was set up in October 2007. The library's aim is to support decision-making in different levels in the hospital. All the planned investments in health technology that have a budget over 1 million SEK must be evaluated and the library has an active role in the evaluating process. The library actively participates in constructing a clinical question (PICO), plan the search strategy and execute the searches, read and select the articles based on PICO, send relevant articles to the researchers and provide a description of the search process to the final evaluation report.

The library has gained a new higher status and recognition of services and competence. It has also become a natural research partner. Participating in HTA research has given the staff new challenges and a possibility to professional development.