title: Developing a prioritized list of innovative technologies: the Spanish experience.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Selecting technologies for formal assessment poses a great challenge to health technology assessment agencies. This study aims to contribute to the creation of a reference framework for the identification, filtering, and prioritization of new and emerging technologies which could be demanded in clinical practice within the next 1-2 years.
  
  
  METHODS
  Technologies were identified using a prevalidated systematic Medline strategy. They were classified by medical specialty and then sent to selected professionals belonging to the medical units or areas responsible for their application, until there was a minimum of three participants per health care setting. A self-administered questionnaire was drawn up and health professionals were asked to: (1) assess the degree of innovation of the technologies, and (11) score their foreseeable clinical impact on the basis of predefined prioritization criteria (n = 4). Intra-rater reliability was analyzed using the intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC).
  
  
  RESULTS
  The Medline search yielded 246 potentially relevant technologies. When analyzed by health care area or unit, sixty-eight were deemed to be high-impact innovative technologies (median score >6), with ICCs ranging from 0.03 to 0.83. The final list resulting from the aggregate analysis comprised fifty-one technologies.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  This study constitutes an innovative contribution to horizon scanning, providing a systematic and reproducible basis for the identification and selection of relevant new and emerging technologies based on the views and values of health professionals involved in their use. In our opinion, the current proposal could be helpful and useful to many other organizations worldwide, serving to complement already existing strategies.
authors: Galician Agency for Health Technology Assessment(Axencia de Avaliación de Tecnoloxías Sanitarias de Galicia/avalia-t),Galician Health Authority,Santiago de Compostela,Spainleonor.varela.lema@sergas.es.
authors: Leonor
authors: L
authors: Varela-Lema
authors: Galician Agency for Health Technology Assessment(Axencia de Avaliación de Tecnoloxías Sanitarias de Galicia/avalia-t),Galician Health Authority,Santiago de Compostela,Spainleonor.varela.lema@sergas.es.
authors: Ramón
authors: R
authors: De La Fuente-Cid
authors: Galician Agency for Health Technology Assessment(Axencia de Avaliación de Tecnoloxías Sanitarias de Galicia/avalia-t),Galician Health Authority,Santiago de Compostela,Spainleonor.varela.lema@sergas.es.
authors: Marisa
authors: M
authors: López-García
mesh_terms: D015276:Health Care Rationing / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D013030:Spain; D013673:Technology Assessment, Biomedical / Q000379:methods*
keywords: Health priorities