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Technology Assessment at SickKids (TASK): A Health Technology Assessment Research Unit Devoted to Child Health in Canada

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Hospital-Based Health Technology Assessment

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Abstract

Children possess unique characteristics that set them apart from adults and that create challenges for the conduct of HTA for hospital-based, community-based and regional policy decision-making. Evidence cannot be extrapolated from adult studies for policy-making governing child health. Methods for child health economic evaluation and HTA need to be improved to ensure that adoption and policy decision-making are evidence-based. TASK (Technology Assessment at Sick Kids) was established within the Research Institute of The Hospital for Sick Children (Sick Kids) in 2007. The goals of TASK include 1) research, 2) decision support through evidence uptake, 3) education, training and capacity development, 4) maintaining and expanding partnerships with knowledge users and 5) continual knowledge transfer & exchange. TASK has completed over twenty-five projects across a wide range of clinical and therapeutic areas resulting in over forty journal publications and technical reports to support institutional, community, provincial, national and international decision-making. While the importance of HTA has been recognized in recent years in many countries, TASK is the only HTA research unit in the world exclusively dedicated to child health and to the further development of HTA methods for application to child health.

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Acknowledgments

Funding for TASK projects has been received from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, Genome Canada, the Ontario Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care, the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health, and The Hospital for Sick Children Research Institute. I remain grateful to the following staff who have made substantial contributions to TASK: Richard Zur, Lilla Roy, Christine Millan, Heather Burnett, Rebecca Hancock-Howard, Vania Costa, and Maria Santos. I also thank the many students and colleagues who have contributed to the success of TASK.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. The Hospital for Sick Children Peter Gilgan Centre for Research and Learning, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Wendy J. Ungar

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  1. Wendy J. Ungar
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Correspondence to Wendy J. Ungar .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Assessment of Innovations and New Technologies, Hospital Clinic Barcelona, Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain

    Laura Sampietro-Colom

  2. Centre for Medical Evidence, Decision Integrity & Clinical Impact (MEDICI), Department of Anesthesia & Perioperative Medicine, Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, Western University, London, Ontario, Canada

    Janet Martin

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Ungar, W.J. (2016). Technology Assessment at SickKids (TASK): A Health Technology Assessment Research Unit Devoted to Child Health in Canada. In: Sampietro-Colom, L., Martin, J. (eds) Hospital-Based Health Technology Assessment. Adis, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39205-9_13

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39205-9_13

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  • Publisher Name: Adis, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-39203-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-39205-9

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