Multidisciplinary Assessment of Technology Centre for Healthcare (MATCH)

is about helping companies reduce the time and cost of getting medical products from concept to market, whilst ensuring that the technology brings real benefit to users, healthcare professionals and providers.

is a government funded collaboration of four leading UK universities working closely with regulatory bodies and companies in the medical device sector to help improve decision-making for both technology suppliers and procurement agencies. It enables industry to identify better products earlier in the design process and bring them to market sooner, with greater confidence that the value to patients and others will be consistently defined and readily recognised.

has five key projects:

• developing tools for Industry that include a framework for investment decisions, a guide to tracker trials and a study on the 'level playing field' for device evaluation;
• defining the value of health care safety and using Bayesian techniques to acquire evidence for assessing cost-effectiveness;
• determining user needs and establishing the place and added value of surrogate (proxy) users' involvement;
• tactical procurement and managing issues that arise when new or modified methods are required for the earliest assessment of value of a technology without jeopardising its ongoing development; and
• creating conditions for sustainable applied research programmes that deliver benefits to both academic and industry partners.