OBJECTIVES: To gain knowledge on the way that HTA of digital health technologies is performed at HTA agencies around the globe, what methodological frameworks are currently being used for this purpose, what domains are considered and what domains are missing on these guidelines.

METHODS: A survey was elaborated based on a prospective analysis of the literature and using the Microsoft Forms tool. The survey was sent to the 7 agencies from the Spanish HTA network (RedETS) and to INAHTA, i-HTS, HTAsiaLink and REDETSA, which spread it among their member agencies.

RESULTS: A total of 20 responses were received from 7 national and 10 international HTA agencies. Of these, 12 (70,6%) agencies, 4 national and 9 international, affirmed to be carrying out HTA of digital health technologies, but only 3 (17,6%) declared to be using specific methodological frameworks for this purpose. Despite of its specificity, the agencies that used these frameworks reported some missing domains among those currently being considered. The same was true for 33% of the agencies that used non-specific frameworks. In this sense, some missing domains reported by the agencies were related to interoperability, technical stability, security, data privacy or accessibility. Likewise, most of the agencies agreed that the evaluation of digital health should be carried out at different time points of the technologies’ life cycle. Of the 4 agencies that do not currently evaluate digital health technologies, three indicated that they are interested in evaluating these types of technologies in the near future.

CONCLUSIONS: Although the characteristics of digital health technologies differ from those of conventional health technologies, a small number of agencies surveyed stated that they use specific methodological frameworks for their evaluation. Our results suggest the need to adapt or develop new frameworks that consider specific domains for the assessment of digital health technologies.