New Research in Value in Health Identifies the Evidence and Evaluation Gaps Limiting Real-World Impact

Lawrenceville, NJ, USA—April 29, 2026—Value in Health, the official journal of ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research, announced today the publication of a special themed section of research papers that advances evidence and methods for evaluating the real-world value of digital health technologies. Guest editors for the themed section are Axel Mühlbacher, Hochschule Neubrandenburg (Germany); Volker Amelung, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover (Germany); and Katarzyna Kolasa, Kozminski University (Poland). The series was published in the April 2026 issue of Value in Health.

“Digital health technologies have increasingly become system-relevant components of healthcare delivery," noted Mühlbacher, Amelung, and Kolasa in their opening editorial. “Yet the term still masks considerable variation in definition and terminology. Value is realized through pathways and systems, not embedded as a fixed product attribute, and therefore requires evidence that remains credible under change.” This themed section spotlights how these technologies create value through clinical, behavioral, and system pathways—and how that value can be evaluated for real-world healthcare decisions.

The themed section includes 7 research papers:

1. “Evaluation of Health Technology Assessment Frameworks for In Vivo Diagnostics: Assessing Methodological Gaps and Implications for Market Access,” by R De la Fuente, HA Cabra Gomez, SK Shah, and C Gibson

    

2. “Toward a Harmonized Health Technology Assessment Framework for Digital Health Technologies in Europe,” by E Tsiasiotis, F Mezei, R Di Bidino, and colleagues

    

3. “Qini Curves for Potential Impact Assessment of Risk Predictive Models Informing Intervention Policies,” by P Palumbo

    

4. “A Patient-Level Simulation Framework to Inform Pain Treatment Decisions and Policy in the United States Military Health System,” by KB Highland, JL Taylor, KF Kirk, and colleagues

    

5. “Cost Savings and Improved Clinical Outcomes From a Mobile Health Cardiovascular Disease Self-Management Program,” by W Roberts, H Lyson, C Speer, E Tovar, E Paz, and E Zimlichman

    

6. “Face Validation of an Artificial Intelligence Driven Tool for Clinical Triaging in Australian Public Oral Healthcare: A Pilot Study,” by TM Nguyen, VCA Caponio, R Rajappa, and colleagues

    

7. “Implications of Incorporating Environmental Sustainability Into Health Technology Assessment for Digital Health Technologies,” by R Di Bidino, AD Majumdar, M Pegg, R Mahon, SC Papavero, and D Mueller

These research findings reveal that current health technology assessment frameworks are not well suited to technologies whose benefits flow through complex clinical and system pathways, with fragmented evaluation across jurisdictions further hindering market access. The editors outline a forward-facing agenda for the field:

• Multi-dimensional evaluation. Move beyond clinical endpoints to include implementation feasibility, system integration, efficiency gains, and auditable post-deployment monitoring.
• Decision-relevant models. Address real-world uptake, adherence, and capacity variation in predictive models, expressing impact in population-relevant terms like resource use and avoidable events.
• Behavioral outcomes and standardized costing. Prioritize quantifying health outcomes from digital health technology-induced behavioral changes, using costing structures that capture integration effort, training, maintenance, and workflow redesign.
• Sustainability. Treat environmental impact as a formal value domain with defined metrics for device lifecycles, energy use, and data infrastructure.
• Equity. Make equity a standing requirement by prespecifying subgroup expectations, documenting adoption barriers, and reporting who benefits and who bears burden.

"Digital health technologies are still used far less than their potential would suggest,” note the editors. "They may be technically strong yet fail to generate scalable benefit if value is not demonstrated credibly, if market conditions impede adoption, or if gains accrue unevenly across stakeholders and populations. The concluding task is to convert these building blocks into operational lifecycle rules and accountable decision standards."

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Further Reading:

• Toward a Common Ground for Defining Digital Health Interventions, Mapping Digital Health Frameworks to PICOTS-ComTeC: An ISPOR Special Interest Group Report
• Mapping Methodologies for Economic Evaluation of Digital Health Technologies: A Scoping Review
• The PICOTS-ComTeC Framework for Defining Digital Health Interventions: An ISPOR Special Interest Group Report
• Assessing Real-World Data From Electronic Health Records for Health Technology Assessment: The SUITABILITY Checklist: A Good Practices Report of an ISPOR Task Force

ABOUT ISPOR 
ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research (HEOR), is an international, multistakeholder, nonprofit dedicated to advancing HEOR excellence to improve decision making for health globally. The Society is the leading source for scientific conferences, peer-reviewed and MEDLINE^®-indexed publications, good practices guidance, education, collaboration, and tools/resources in the field. 
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ABOUT VALUE IN HEALTH 
Value in Health (ISSN 1098-3015) is an international, indexed journal that publishes original research and health policy articles that advance the field of health economics and outcomes research to help healthcare leaders make evidence-based decisions. The journal’s current impact factor score is 6.0 and its 5-year impact factor score is 5.7. Value in Health is ranked 5th of 124 journals in Health Policy and Services, 12th of 185 journals in Health Care Sciences & Services, and 37th of 617 journals in Economics. Value in Health is a monthly publication that circulates to more than 55,000 readers around the world. 
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