Horizon Scanning Methods for Health Care Technology Innovation Identification: Rapid Scoping Review of Patent...

Area of Science:

• Health care innovation
• Technology management
• Intellectual property analysis

Background:

• Patents are early indicators of innovation, but their utility in healthcare horizon scanning is not well-defined.
• The healthcare sector features diverse technologies and substantial research investment, necessitating effective innovation tracking.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role and methods of patent analysis in advancing healthcare technology innovation.
• To identify intellectual property sources, evaluate retrieval and analysis techniques, and define objectives for using patent data to predict trends and inform strategies.

Main Methods:

• A rapid scoping review following Cochrane and PRISMA guidelines with a preregistered protocol.
• Searches of Embase, IEEE Xplore, and Web of Science for records from 2020 onwards.
• Inclusion of studies providing patent data, methods, and tools for healthcare technologies, screened by three independent reviewers.

Main Results:

• 124 studies were included from 1741 identified, with 54% original research and 43.5% reviews.
• Trend analysis (50%) and strategy recommendations (20%) were common research objectives.
• Cancer and respiratory conditions (including COVID-19) were key focus areas, with 33% of studies using automated approaches for analysis.

Conclusions:

• Patent data is valuable for identifying technological trends and informing policy and research.
• Inconsistent deduplication practices risk data inflation, highlighting the need for transparency.
• Data transformation and visualization are key for trend detection, with Python and R being common tools.