Virtual care and health technology assessment considerations

Area of Science:

• Healthcare policy
• Health services research
• Digital health

Background:

• Virtual care adoption surged during the COVID-19 pandemic.
• Health Technology Assessment (HTA) previously focused on clinical and cost-effectiveness for virtual care.
• Pandemic-driven implementation necessitated a shift in HTA priorities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To analyze the evolution of Health Technology Assessment (HTA) for virtual care.
• To identify key considerations for HTA in the post-adoption era of virtual care.
• To outline future directions for HTA in evaluating emerging virtual care technologies.

Main Methods:

• Review of HTA approaches pre- and post-COVID-19 pandemic.
• Analysis of HTA questions shifting from effectiveness to implementation.
• Examination of post-adoption HTA domains including patient/clinician perspectives and equity.

Main Results:

• HTA priorities shifted from pre-pandemic cost-effectiveness to pandemic-era implementation challenges.
• Post-adoption HTA encompasses medical appropriateness, training, billing, user experiences, and access equity.
• Emerging virtual care technologies require novel HTA evidence and impact assessments.

Conclusions:

• Future HTA must proactively identify new virtual care technologies and evidence types.
• Assessing the healthcare system's potential impact and operational factors is crucial.
• HTA organizations need to adapt their methodologies for ongoing virtual care evaluation.