Methodology of constructive technology assessment in health care

Abstract

In addition to HTA, CTA can be used as a complementary approach, especially in technologies that are introduced in an early stage of development in a controlled way.

The Contribution of Health Technology Assessment, Health Needs Assessment, and Health Impact Assessment to the Assessment and Translation of Technologies in the Field of Public Health Genomics

“…Technologies may change rapidly, be ‘on the move’ in a technological sense, and although HTA can accommodate this by iterative assessment, opportunities to actually ‘shape’ the technology and to channel research in the needed direction are hardly ever realised. Constructive technology assessment (CTA) has been advocated as a means to address this issue [26]. By acknowledging the socio-dynamic processes of technology development, CTA can influence the development and implementation of the technology.…”

“…Intervention methods in CTA include, for example, techniques like awareness initiatives, controlled experimentation, consensus conferences, and dialogue workshops, to influence technological development and application [26]. Currently, CTA is regarded as complementary to HTA, with as yet relatively few applications in health care.…”

How can we assess the value of complex medical innovations in practice?

“…The sociology of technology provides a methodological orientation for assessing the value of emerging medical technologies, namely, under the Constructivist Technology Assessment (CTA) paradigm [16,17]. However, such an approach is not well integrated into Health Technology Assessment (HTA) yet.…”

“…CTA can be very informative in the early stage of complex emerging technologies [5,16,17]. CTA can satisfy the needs of decision-makers by targeting the loci of value -promises and practices -in real world.…”

Editorial (Nutriproteomics and Proteogenomics: Cultivating Two Novel Hybrid Fields of Personalized Medicine with Added Societal Value)

“…More recently, HTA evolved beyond deterministic analyses of "impacts" of a new technology. Modern HTA does not assume that technologies or their social environment are necessarily static [11]. Instead, we are increasingly witnessing a model based on a dynamic co-evolution of technology and society, or real-time technology assessment [12].…”