An Evidence Analysis Framework for Patient-Facing Digital Health Technology Assessment

PURPOSE: With the proliferation of digital health interventions (DHIs) there is an increasing need for a structure to guide health economic and outcomes research (HEOR) and health technology assessments (HTA) by defining these technologies. In this session, an audience with an interest in HEOR and HTA related to patient-facing Digital Health will learn about and apply a proposed descriptive framework for assessment of DHIs.

DESCRIPTION: The PICOTS-ComTeC (population, intervention, comparator, outcome, timing, setting, communication, technology, context) framework has been developed to overcome the issue that many terms used for DHIs are not sufficiently precise enough to support HEOR best practices. The ISPOR Digital Health SIG researched the current use of digital health terms. Based upon the shortcomings identified, a Delphi panel was used to gain consensus on the most relevant domains/subcategories to be specified in definitions of patient-facing DHIs for evidence summaries. The resulting PICOTS-ComTeC framework, an extension of the well-established PICOTS, specifically addresses the variability of DHIs.

AC will introduce the SIG research project and describe the digital health term challenges that were identified, CA will present the proposed PICOTS-ComTeC approach and AB will introduce real-world DHI case examples. In the second half of the session, AC will use real-time polling to guide the audience through an exercise in which they can apply the new framework to define a patient-facing digital health intervention for the purpose of conducting a HTA. AC will present practical suggestions for the application of the new framework in HEOR research. Finally, CA will lead a Q&A session and audience discussion of the opportunities and challenges of using the PICOTS-ComTeC framework.