Book excerpt: This is the first book to offer a comprehensive guide to involving patients in health technology assessment (HTA). Defining patient involvement as patient participation in the HTA process and research into patient aspects, this book includes detailed explanations of approaches to participation and research, as well as case studies. Patient Involvement in HTA enables researchers, postgraduate students, HTA professionals and experts in the HTA community to study these complementary ways of taking account of patients’ knowledge, experiences, needs and preferences. Part I includes chapters discussing the ethical rationale, terminology, patient-based evidence, participation and patient input. Part II sets out methodology including: Qualitative Evidence Synthesis, Discrete Choice Experiments, Analytical Hierarchy Processes, Ethnographic Fieldwork, Deliberative Methods, Social Media Analysis, Patient-Reported Outcome Measures, patients as collaborative research partners and evaluation. Part III contains 15 case studies setting out current activities by HTA bodies on five continents, health technology developers and patient organisations. Each part includes discussion chapters from leading experts in patient involvement. A final chapter reflects on the need to clearly define the goals for patient involvement within the context of the HTA to identify the optimal approach. With cohesive contributions from more than 80 authors from a variety of disciplines around the globe, it is hoped this book will serve as a catalyst for collaboration to further develop patient involvement to improve HTA. "If you’re not involving patients, you're not doing HTA!" - Dr. Brian O’Rourke, President and CEO of CADTH, Chair of INAHTA