In Hungary, the procedure for health technology assessment of innovative pharmaceutical products allows 13 assessors 43 calendar days to evaluate reimbursement submissions. These short timelines have created a need for smart capacity building, namely, streamlining the scientific evaluation process while making sure that the quality of the critical appraisals remain high. The objective of this study was to present and evaluate the implementation of an online knowledge base to distill community knowledge, and also for management purposes.

The scope and the content-, functional-, and technical specification was developed, and information technology security requirements were identified during the pre-implementation phase. An existing platform was chosen for adaptation, ensuring that descriptive follow-up data is available on uptake for monitoring purposes. Both the adaptation and maintenance were carried out internally by the Department of Health Technology Assessment at the National Institute of Pharmacy and Nutrition.

The key requirements identified when developing the specification were searchability, low maintenance need, low operating costs and attractivity for users. An already existing open-source, flat file content management system was chosen for adaptation. In terms of content, a health technology assessment handbook, process documentation, a news bulletin section was created, and corporate identity elements were added. Since the start of the service in September 2018, the number of total daily page downloads to the knowledge base varied between four and 1,193 (average 205 per day), with the assessment handbook topping the overall page visit statistics.

The implementation of this knowledge base enables the Department of Technology Assessment to rely more on the formalized community knowledge when carrying out critical appraisal, while enabling better knowledge and quality management. Uptake remains an issue on the long run, indicating a need for continuous content development.