The mission of the Institute for Technology Assessment (ITA) is to conduct health outcomes research to guide the development, evaluation, and utilization of medical technologies that improve the quality and cost-effectiveness of medical care.
The Institute was established in 1997 (originally known as the Decision Analysis and Technology Assessment (DATA) Group), in order to support economically-based assessment of medical technologies, and outcomes research in general. The Institute provides the infrastructure and expertise to evaluate diagnostic and therapeutic medical technologies at all stages of development, and thereby promoting optimal use of increasingly limited health care resources. Its primary activities are the development and application of rigorous scientific methodologies including clinical epidemiology, cost-benefit, and cost-effectiveness analysis, health state preference and health-related quality of life methodology, decision analysis, economics, and health economics. The formation of the Institute acknowledges the increased breadth of research activities and the active involvement of investigators from a wide group of disciplines. From a historical and content perspective, the departmental home has been and remains in Radiology. However, the Institute is now recognized as an institutional program and has important connections to many departments and programs throughout the Massachusetts General Hospital.
The Institute includes individuals with training and expertise in the core disciplines of biostatistics, epidemiology, economics, decision science, health-related quality of life measurement, outcomes analysis, and health care policy. Dr. Scott Gazelle served as the (founding) Director of the Institute until 2015, followed by Dr. Pari Pandharipande until Nov 2021. Dr. Jagpreet Chhatwal currently serves as the Director.
While the Institute is known for outcomes research in cancer (colorectal, lung, esophageal), several new research projects were initiated in the last five years that aim at informing policies to address the opioid epidemic (in collaboration with the Food and Drug Administration), global hepatitis C elimination (in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and World Health Organization (WHO)), and more recently, COVID-19 mitigation response in the U.S.
Institute faculty have training and expertise in:
- Simulation Modeling
- Cost-effectiveness Analysis
- Health Outcomes Analysis
- Healthcare Policy
Research activities emphasize the evaluation of non-drug technologies, including devices, diagnostics, and procedures. A unique focus is on the evaluation of technologies during the early stages of development, from discovery to preliminary clinical testing, when extensive data regarding clinical effectiveness may not yet be available. In these instances, computer models are utilized in order to simulate expected outcomes (using the methods of decision analysis), and thereby predict costs, effectiveness, and overall impact on the healthcare system.