Review of early assessment models of innovative medical technologies

Hospitals increasingly make decisions regarding the early development of and investment in technologies, but a formal evaluation model for assisting hospitals early on in assessing the potential of innovative medical technologies is lacking. This article provides an overview of models for early assessment in different health organisations and discusses which models hold most promise for hospital decision makers.

A scoping review of published studies between 1996 and 2015 was performed using nine databases. The following information was collected: decision context, decision problem, and a description of the early assessment model.

2362 articles were identified and 12 studies fulfilled the inclusion criteria. An additional 12 studies were identified and included in the review by searching reference lists. The majority of the 24 early assessment studies were variants of traditional cost-effectiveness analysis. Around one fourth of the studies presented an evaluation model with a broader focus than cost-effectiveness. Uncertainty was mostly handled by simple sensitivity or scenario analysis.

This review shows that evaluation models using known methods assessing cost-effectiveness are most prevalent in early assessment, but seems ill-suited for early assessment in hospitals. Four models provided some usable elements for the development of a hospital-based model.