Health Technology Assessment of Intensive Care Ventilators for Pediatric Patients

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Health Technology Assessment
• Pediatric Critical Care

Background:

• Implementing intensive care ventilators in pediatric settings requires careful consideration of technical features and assessment methodologies.
• Health Technology Assessment (HTA) is crucial for informed decision-making in acquiring medical equipment.
• Selecting appropriate ventilators impacts patient safety, clinical outcomes, and resource allocation in pediatric intensive care units.

Purpose of the Study:

• To address critical aspects of intensive care ventilator implementation in pediatric settings.
• To highlight relevant technical features and describe an HTA methodology for decision support.
• To provide a reliable and transferable method for hospital decision-making processes.

Main Methods:

• Applied the decision-making support tool, DoHTA method, to four intensive care ventilator models.
• Identified 28 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) covering safety, clinical effectiveness, organizational, technical, and economic aspects.
• Integrated ventilator performance scores with total cost of ownership analysis for ranking.

Main Results:

• The DoHTA method provided ranked performance scores for four ventilator models based on 28 KPIs and cost analysis.
• The assessment identified the most performant technological solution tailored to the specific hospital context.
• HTA results effectively informed and supported the pediatric hospital's decision-making process.

Conclusions:

• The study critically evaluates innovative ventilator features and HTA criteria for pediatric intensive care.
• The developed HTA method offers valuable evidence and a transferable approach for hospital technology acquisition.
• This approach ensures valued, contextualized, and shared outputs for selecting optimal pediatric ventilators.