“HTA is a multidisciplinary process that summarizes information about the medical, social, economic and ethical issues related to the use of a health technology in a systematic, transparent, unbiased, robust manner. Its aim is to inform the formulation of safe, effective, health policies that are patient focused, and seek to achieve best value” (EUnetHTA 2007). Even though the assessment of ethical aspects of a health technology is listed as one of the objectives of a HTA process, in practice, the integration (...) of these dimensions into reports remains limited. The article is focused on four points: 1. the HTA concept; 2. the difficult HTA-ethics relationship; 3. the ethical issues in HTA; 4. the methods for integrating ethical analysis into HTA. (shrink)

El artículo pone en evidencia la dimensión ético-antropológica de la historia de la medicina. En el pasado podemos encontrar aquellos elementos de relevancia ética que están en estrecha continuidad con el presente. Desde los orígenes el médico ha experimentado el conflicto entre el mundo del deseo y el mundo del límite. El cuidado de los enfermos comienza desde ahí, de la consciencia de compartir el mismo deseo, el mismo límite, el mismo destino. El artículo mira la historia de la medicina (...) como historia de la humanidad; dentro está toda la vida humana, según la definición del historiador Fielding Garrison . En esta perspectiva la dimensión ético-antropológica emerge sobre todo en las múltiples figuras de médicos ejemplares caracterizados por valores como el valor, la dedicación, la empatía, pero sobre todo por un gran sentido de humanidad y de solidaridad por sus enfermos. En fin, una lectura ético-social puede emerger del arte y de la literatura. Ellas son no sólo testimonio de una época sino también un sismógrafo de las dimensiones éticas de la medicina.This article highlights the ethical-anthropological level of the history of medicine. It explores the close connection between past and present regarding those elements of ethical relevance in medicine. Since the beginning, the physician experienced the conflict between hopes and limits. Medical care springs exactly from the awareness of sharing the same desire, the same limit, and the same destiny. This article regards the history of medicine as history of mankind; according to the historian Fielding Garrison, the history of medicine embodies the entire human life . In this perspective, the ethical-anthropological dimension emerges particularly in many exemplary figures of physicians, distinguished for courage, commitment, empathy, humanity and solidarity towards their patients. Finally, arts and literature can be regarded as instruments to get a cultural perspective, as well as guidelines for social and ethical key of interpretation. They are not only historical documents, but also a seismograph, registering the fundamental historical dimension of medicine. (shrink)