Criteria for topic selection

How Technologies are Selected

CMTP aims to focus efforts on addressing pressing evidence gaps and questions for the most promising emerging medical technologies. Clearly, the numbers of technologies that need evaluation far outweigh CMTP’s available resources, so CMTP will employ a defined set of criteria to determine the eligibility and prioritize technology suggestions. These criteria include:

• Recent technology assessments have concluded existing clinical evidence is insufficient to answer key decision-maker questions.
• The technology shows a potential to provide a clinically significant and substantial improvement in net health outcome compared to the most effective alternative.
• The technology shows potential to exert significant impact on the value of health care services purchased by the health plan.
• The technology is not the sole treatment option for a serious condition, and the condition is not immediately life threatening.
• Market factors suggest that in absence of a CED initiative, appropriate evidence regarding the risks and benefits of the technology compared to existing alternatives would never become available.
• The proposed research will contribute to reducing the uncertainties identified during the technology assessment and reducing those uncertainties will likely change the outcome of the technology assessment and/or coverage decisions (i.e., the concept of improvability of evidence or value of information).

Other factors that will be considered in selecting topics include the political and operational feasibility of conducting the research (e.g., whether there may be significant ethical, legal or social barriers or equity concerns), the likely timeliness of the proposed research to inform decisions, and the consequences of making a provisional coverage determination on ongoing clinical research.