Fostering the digital health tech revolution

Imagine a future where groundbreaking health technologies reach NHS patients in a matter of months rather than years. Where innovative devices and digital therapeutics transform patient care as rapidly as they're developed. This future may soon be within our grasp.

NICE recently announced reforms to its processes that will allow more innovative healthcare technologies to be speedily adopted by the NHS. The changes will mean that more products can be evaluated. Furthermore, health technologies will now need to be cost effective, rather than just cost saving, in order for them to be recommended for use in the NHS.

Rapid growth of new healthtech

New health technologies are constantly emerging, with many holding the potential to radically transform how we deliver care. 

Innovation in fields such as wearable technologies, remote care, and diagnostics driven by artificial intelligence require us to fundamentally reimagine how patient care is delivered in the digital age.  

Harnessing this technology can transform the delivery of healthcare through efficiency gains, better patient outcomes, greater accessibility and decisions driven by larger data sets. 

However, making the most of this technology requires systemic change. 

NHS 10-year plan – the shift from ‘analogue to digital’ 

The NHS has provided health and care, free at the point of delivery, for more than 75 years. It is rightly held as a national treasure. Yet, as the government points out, change is needed to restore and reform the NHS to ensure its long-term sustainability. 

The government has set out a mission to build an NHS fit for the future by shifting the NHS from ‘hospital to community, from ‘sickness to prevention’ and from ‘analogue to digital’. 

The priorities are necessary, and the ambition to embrace digital technologies can bring about better outcomes for patients in a way that is economically sustainable. 

But realising this ambition is dependent on the NHS using only the health technologies that are most clinically and cost effective.  

This is where NICE, with its 25-year history of healthtech evaluation, can play an important role. 

NICE – getting the best care to people fast

Since 1999, NICE has provided guidance to help health care and commissioners get the best care to people fast, while ensuring value to the taxpayer. We do this by producing evidence-based guidance on the clinical and cost-effectiveness of new and existing technologies.

In recent years, our health technology portfolio has rapidly grown. We have produced more than 700 pieces of guidance on new health technologies. Our digital health output now 30 times bigger than it was in 2021-22 and we assessed more than 100 digital products in 22 categories this year.

Innovative technologies we’ve recently recommended include an artificial pancreas for managing blood glucose levels in type 1 diabetes, digital therapeutic apps for adults with depression, and AI software to help diagnose stroke.

We are scheduled to cover 70 products covering a further 8 categories in 2025-26. These include investigating the use of digital technology to aid the detection of vertebral fragility fractures, gather information for assessments for talking therapies, support cardiac rehabilitation and manage mild to moderate hip or knee osteoarthritis.

However, we know that more can be done to ensure the safe and effective adoption of such innovative health technologies. We can move even faster when producing guidance. We can simplify our approach to evaluation and make it more flexible for new products. And we can simplify how developers engage with us.

A single healthtech evaluation programme

As a result, we have proposed changes that will transform how we evaluate health technologies.

Our proposals include:

• Merging three existing programmes into a single healthtech programme. Our interventional procedures, medical technologies evaluation and diagnostics assessment programmes will be combined.

• Introducing a lifecycle evaluation approach to consider technologies for early or routine use in the NHS, and to consider those already in use.

• Making multi-tech assessments of similar technologies with the same purpose standard practice.

We expect this will make our processes simpler, timelier and more relevant.

For healthtech companies:

• It will be simpler to engage with NICE. Products will no longer be required to be cost saving and there will be one evaluation programme with one set of processes and methods.

• The journey to market entry will also be smoother – with more tailored support early during product development.

And frontline healthcare workers will be assured that the products we recommend closely align with the priorities of the health and care system. Our recently published forward view, which is updated annually, will give you greater clarity on NHS priorities and sets out our system-led topic priorities for the year ahead.

Next steps

This is the first update to create a new NICE HealthTech manual. We plan to make further changes to ensure NICE HealthTech guidance is relevant and meets the needs of patients and the NHS.

Our role and purpose within the health and care system remains the same as when we were formed more than 25 years ago. But amidst the new revolution in health technology, we must be laser-focussed on equipping the NHS with the best technologies for the best value. ​

Our revitalised healthtech evaluation programme will help ensure innovative tests and treatments reach patients faster. We look forward to working with you in shaping the programme further.

Find out more

• visit our digital health at NICE page

• read our draft healthtech programme manual

• listen to our podcast: digital therapies to treat mental health conditions.

This article was first published on digitalhealth.net.