Health technology assessment

On January 19, 2021, Belgian Health Care Knowledge Center (KCE) published a health services research report "Barriers and facilitators for eHealth adoption by general practitioners”. Findings from the research show that there is a wide range of factors contributing to the uptake of eHealth technology by healthcare professionals. These factors range from the quality of the eHealth technology, use, and user satisfaction, net benefits, individual, organizational, and implementation characteristics to country-specific factors (such as governance, standards, funding, or trends).

On December 30, 2020, the French National Authority for Health (HAS) published a report "Economic evaluation of telemonitoring to inform public decision-making", based on the systematic literature review. According to the results of the review, telemonitoring can be considered as a way to improve the organization of care and reduce care costs.

In December 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published one new medical technologies guidance (Zio XT for detecting cardiac arrhythmias), three Medtech innovation briefings (ReStore Soft Exo-Suit for gait rehabilitation, Cytosponge for detecting abnormal cells in the esophagus, and Evoke Spinal Cord Stimulator for managing chronic neuropathic or ischemic pain). Also, nine clinical guidance documents were updated.

On December 31, 2020, the French National Authority for Health (HAS) published a methodological guide clarifying aspects related to the organizational impact of health technologies under the evaluation. As the organizational impact can be documented when submitting an evaluation file for a drug, medical device, or a procedure, the guide aims to define the types of organizational impact and to propose criteria to measure these effects.

In 2013, Norway established a framework “New Method” for the introduction of innovations into the health care system through either a national or hospital-based health technology assessment. In this framework, all innovations should undergo HTA before being funded. In the second half of 2020, eight new mini-HTA projects of medical technologies were launched in Norway: tissue allotransplantation, pain treatment via neuromodulation, among others.

In November 2020, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) published one new interventional procedure guidance (for swallowable gastric balloon capsule for weight loss), five Medtech innovation briefings (for QuickChange Incontinence Wrap for urinary incontinence in men, Magseed for locating breast cancer lesions, Dexcom G6 for continuous glucose monitoring, and others). Also, one clinical guidance (for acute coronary syndromes) was updated.

In November 2020, Stockholm Region issued a preliminary version of the prospective report for the management of health care up to 2040. The report raised the need for new ways of organizing health care in the Stockholm Region and outlined the increase of standardization and alignment trend, emerge of collaborative governance models, the increase of care structure complexity, etc.

On December 03, 2020, the Swedish Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency (TLV) published a report on its activities in health economic evaluations of medical technologies in 2020. The significant change is that since 2020 TLV has a permanent assignment to carry out horizon scanning and health economic evaluations of medical technology products as a part of the national orderly introduction framework.

On November 27, 2020, the National Committee for the evaluation of medical devices and health technologies (CNEDiMTS) at the French National Authority for Health (HAS) released a recommendation about the registration of flash self-monitoring glucose system FREESTYLE LIBRE 2 in the LPPR list.

The HTA body of the Tuscany Regional Healthcare issues two types of documents: HTA forms and motivational forms. With a regional decree 19274 of November 24, Tuscany Regional Healthcare has published assessments of twelve medical devices of various therapeutic areas. See the list of evaluated devices in the post from MTRC.

In November 2020, the Swedish Dental and Pharmaceutical Benefits Agency (TLV) launched a theme survey for medical technology products in stroke, focusing on products for diagnostic/assessment in case of suspected stroke. The submissions in relation to this survey will be closed on December 16, 2020

In October 2020, a mini-HTA report was published on “Early method evaluation” (Tidlig metodevurdering). The report proposes a novel type of “early method evaluation” to complement existing national and mini-HTA frameworks in Norway. This new assessment type can be performed before classical HTA. Early Method Evaluation can be used locally at department or hospital levels when new technology/innovation is tested to analyze the impact on patient, staff, finances before reliable evidence from clinical studies became available.