The Evidence Standards Framework for Digital Health Technologies was developed collaboratively by bringing together innovators, commissioners, clinicians, academics and other stakeholders.
The UK's National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), a non-departmental public body that is part of the Department of Health in England, focuses on the publication of references and guidance on the use of health technologies within the National Health Service in England (NHS), and NHS Wales, among other tasks.
In 2018, NICE published the Evidence Standards Framework for Digital Health Technologies (ESF), which has been updated this year. "The Evidence Standards Framework is designed to be used for digital health technologies that are being considered for commissioning in the UK health and care system," NICE explains.
NICE sees digital health as having the potential to empower people through more convenient and effective healthcare. Reducing the number of appointments, helping people isolated from health services, are some of the goals of Digital Health in England and Wales.
In addition, NICE has launched its specialized office for Digital Health, to accelerate processes in bringing innovation to the healthcare system and to keep up to date with new trends in emerging healthcare technologies.
The goal of the standards
The ESF seeks to ease the work of professionals involved in the development of digital health technologies, and also to establish rules on the satisfaction of the needs of the healthcare system, patients and users:
- Provide advice to digital health innovators about how the NHS makes decisions, and the standards of evidence they will be expected to produce for different types of digital health technologies.
- Help NHS commissioners to make more informed and consistent decisions by providing a framework for the levels of evidence they should expect to see presented to them.
- Improve the approach to developing and commissioning digital health technologies by making it more dynamic and value driven, with a focus on offering real value to patients.
The next update to the ESF will be published in autumn 2022, and will seek to fully incorporate past digital technologies in data and AI, as well as those using adaptive technology and algorithms.
Check out the ESF at the following link: https://www.nice.org.uk/corporate/ecd7
