When assessing existing or emerging technologies using a one-off health technology assessment (HTA) we do not take into consideration the effects on people who will receive the technology once approved. Developments in real-world data (RWD) can help to address this by moving to ongoing health technology management (HTM).

To move to HTM, we first need to develop HTM data requirements. We undertook user interviews with National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) HTA developers to develop a list of requirements. We surveyed the types of data that NICE currently has access to and performed a gap analysis to understand where further data is needed. We then worked with external systems partners to identify and review available data sources that could support HTM.

From our user interviews we established eight HTM data requirements. Data needed to be linked, cover full care pathways, contain data from new collections, be shareable, have direct access, be of high quality, have comprehensive coverage, and be responsive to technological developments (such as artificial intelligence). The review of data sources revealed a fragmented landscape of health data in the United Kingdom (UK). We identified National Health Service Digital’s (NHSD) Trusted Research Environment as the main data source that could address HTM requirements. This addresses challenges with fragmented data by providing approved researchers with timely and secure access to a range of linked health and care data. We also identified that a large national data collection would not capture all technologies, such as orphan technologies for rare conditions. We therefore established a process for accessing data from smaller data collections such as disease specific registries. To address how we can use this data, we developed the NICE Real-World Evidence (RWE) Framework that provides clear guidance on the expectations for the planning, conduct, reporting, and appraisal of RWE studies.

We have established requirements for the type of data that will help to deliver HTM as well as developed a process for accessing several suitable data sources that meet these requirements.