Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health 2009 Symposium

April 5-7, 2009
Ottawa, ON

Evidence, Decisions, Outcomes:
Optimizing the Use of Drugs and
Health Technologies

Drugs and other health technologies make an essential contribution to health care. However, the rapid pace of technological advancement brings challenges as well as benefits. Decision makers are called upon to make beneficial new technologies available as quickly as possible, while protecting the public from unsafe and ineffective technologies and managing public funds wisely.

The key to successfully addressing these challenges lies in optimizing the use of drugs and other health technologies. Providing access to, and promoting the use of, appropriate, clinically effective technologies at the best value delivers positive outcomes for patients and the health system as a whole.

The 2009 CADTH Symposium follows the link from evidence to decisions to enhanced patient outcomes and explores ideas, initiatives and actions to optimize the uptake and use of heath technologies of proven value while managing the diffusion of ineffective and inefficient ones.

What are the barriers to evidence use and how are decision makers in health ministries, regional health authorities, hospitals and bedsides surmounting these barriers? How can patients, the public, industry and other stakeholders play a role in achieving optimal use of health technologies? Are there effective ways of filling knowledge gaps and incorporating real world evidence to support optimal technology use? What needs to be done to build on the progress that has been made in Canada since the introduction of Health Technology Assessment some 20 years ago?

Join Canadian and international experts in the production and use of evidence-based information on drugs and other health technologies in a thought-provoking discussion of these and other issues at the 2009 CADTH Symposium.