Runtime: 2021-2025
Client: National Health Care Institute (Zorginstituut Nederland)
Project description
The Dutch National Health Care Institute (Zorginstituut Nederland) has a structural academic collaboration with the Erasmus School of Health, Policy, and Management (ESHPM) at the Erasmus University Rotterdam. From a standpoint of evidence-based policy making, these collaborations aim for applied scientific research on regulatory issues. As part of this collaboration, a PhD trajectory started in 2021 on the governance of medical technology. The development of medical technology has far-reaching implications for the governance of health care. Conventional means of regulating these new technologies may not be useful, nor sufficient to guarantee the quality, accessibility, and affordability of technology in healthcare. This PhD research aims to explore how innovative medical technology is governed.
The first case study of this PhD research analyzed the ‘International Horizon Scanning Initiative Medical Devices Working Group’ (IHSI MDWG), in the set-up of their international horizon scanning tool for medical devices. In the paper on this case study, we use the analytical framework of anticipatory governance to show how specific ideologies about the future emerge in collaborative governance practices and what the implications are. One of the points we make in the first article is that an additional focus on engagement between different stakeholders and integration of a diversity of perspectives may contribute to making governance of medical technology more holistic and reflexive.
In our current studies, we are exploring the role of health technology assessment (agencies) in governing medical technology through discourse analysis as well as through a case-study with ZonMw. Finally, we are conducting interviews with industry actors to see how they are navigating the (changing) governance landscape of medical technology. The insights gained from these studies will lead to the formulation of a policy intervention formulated together with the National Health Care Institute.
Team
Renee Michels (PhD Candidate), Dr. Bert de Graaff, Dr. Payam Abrishami, Prof. dr. Diana Delnoij