The Medical Devices Special Access Program in Canada: A Scoping Study

Abstract

New health technologies enter Canadian healthcare organizations in various ways, and understanding them is essential to the development of a pan-Canadian Health Technology Management (HTM) Strategy, now a priority of governments across Canada. One way is through Health Canada's Medical Devices Special Access Program (MDSAP), which permits unlicensed devices to be obtained by healthcare professionals. However, the circumstances around and implications of the current use of this program are not clear. A scoping literature review was conducted to clarify these and identify important roles and issues related to the MDSAP. Limited information was found on the MDSAP. Nevertheless, three themes demonstrating the roles of the MDSAP in HTM emerged: arbiter in technology selection, a route to technology procurement and facilitator of health technology innovation. No information suggesting that MDSAP is used to circumvent licensing was found. Rather, it enables desired patient outcomes and product commercialization.

How to calculate the life cycle of high-risk medical devices for patient safety

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Effect of medical innovation policies on the prevention and control of the COVID-19 and the impact of the “Belt and Road” economy

“…The research trends of Chinese and international telemedicine literature from 2008 to 2020 are shown in Figure 3 ( 13 , 14 ). The research direction of Chinese telemedicine literature is shown in Figure 4 ( 15 , 16 ).…”