Challenges of Digital Health Technology Assessment

Description

The development of information and communication technologies (ICT) in healthcare is highly correlated with overall ICT trends, moving from Mainframe Computers (1950-1960) to Health IT (1970-2000), then to E-Health and M-Health (2000-2020), and reaching Digital Health (DH) in the 2020s. DH provides important support in the prevention and treatment of diseases through tools such as Artificial Intelligence, robotics, health apps, virtual reality, etc. This range is expanding and new products and services are emerging. At the same time, it should be considered that these are health technologies that may be subject to a health technology assessment (HTA). Consequently, the aim of this research is to take insight into the current trends in DHTA issues regarding the policy and research, and possible DHTA limitations.. To achieve the aim of this research, a content analysis of key policy planning documents has been carried out, as well as a scoping review of scientific literature has been performed based on search items (“digital” AND “health technology assessment”) in the PubMed database.. World Health Organization’s (WHO) Global Strategy on Digital Health 2020-2025 and Regional Digital Health Action Plan for the WHO European Region 2023–2030 are broad policy planning documents that guide DH development, but they do not cover HTA issues. Simultaneously, the PubMed database shows a sharp increase in the number of scientific articles from 2018 to 2022, which address different medical fields, but they also point to the lack of a unified methodology for DHTA. This is particularly important as HTA is intended to validate the evidence of technology and to determine its value for the patient and society.. The development of DH technologies is outpacing the DHTA process, which may delay their reaching the patients. Increased attention should be paid to specifying the DH technologies taxonomy and to the development of DHTA methodologies.

Period	31 Mar 2023
Event title	RSU Research week 2023: PLACES
Event type	Conference
Conference number	3
Organiser	Rīga Stradiņš University
Location	Rīga, LatviaShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International