Dr. Rabia Sucu was elected as the President of the International Health Technologies Evaluation Association. Serving as vice president for two years in the 2021-2023 period, Dr. Sucu will continue to serve as president. For the first time, an expert from a low- and middle-income country has been elected to the presidency of HTAi, a non-governmental organization devoted to the development of the field of Health Technologies Assessment worldwide. Elected to this post with broad support, Dr. Sucu had previously been a member of the board of directors for two terms (2014-2020) in the same joint. Sucui, who previously served as the head of the Developing Countries special interest group and the Head of the Medical devices special interest group at HTAi, also contributed to the development of this field in nine countries from the Balkans and Central Asia as the Head of the Eurasia HTA Initiative.
Dr. Sucu is currently working as a senior technical consultant in the SAFEMed project budgeted by USAID in Ukraine. In this role, he advises the Ministry of Health of Ukraine on the determination of priorities in the field of health in the country, the institutionalization of HTA and the determination of evidence-based pricing and reimbursement policies. Sucu, who has been working in Ukraine since 2018, was working as a family medicine trainer (Assoc. Prof. Dr.) at Ankara Numune Training and Research Hospital and was also the head of the HTA Unit of the hospital. This Unit has saved 2.5 million Euros in 3 years with its efforts and entered the literature as the strongest example of single hospital-based savings in the world. Dr. Sucu was the founding chairman of the Evidence-Based Medicine Association in Turkey and contributed to many European Union projects. A medical doctor with a master's degree in HTA, Dr. Sucu is a graduate of Bornoa Anatolian High School. He completed his medical education at Hacettepe Faculty of Medicine in English, his specialty in family medicine in Ankara and his master's degree in Italy. He received training on health management in Italy, health economics in Spain, epidemiology and advanced economic evaluation methods in Canada, and Patient Safety in England and Ireland. He carried out studies in the fields of Health Technologies Evaluation, quality and patient safety at the US Department of Health and Johns Hopkins University for one year. Dr.Sucu previously held different positions at the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Turkey in different areas such as the development of the HTA field, drug price and reimbursement policies, clinical guidelines, and quality. Rabia Sucu has more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed journals, 8 books and over 400 presentations in international congresses.
