To make itself more relevant in a longer perspective health technology assessment (HTA) will have to make use of novel ways to improve its services; in particular in terms of rapid response, cost savings and reduction of risk of bias. The use of artificial intelligence (AI) offers significant assistance at essentially all stages of any HTA. It can search, retrieve, read and organize relevant literature, not only from traditional databases but from numerous data sources related to specific issues (e.g. clinical trials, health outcomes, payment of services), and from databases in other areas such as in social, justice, and educational services, and public health.

This presentation will explain the use and feasibility of AI in HTAs based on the findings from a currently ongoing project in the province of Alberta Canada. It will (i) provide an overview of AI in healthcare, (ii) outline selected international efforts of using AI in systematic reviews, such as the Robotreviewer, (iii) describe the information needed, and the development of the algorithms for using AI in HTAs, and (iv) report on the findings from a comparative study of human versus AI resources in performing an HTA.

This project has just started, however preliminary findings from the comparative analysis of AI versus human performance on a specific topic for HTA will be presented.

It is expected that the comparative study will demonstrate that artificial intelligence will become a useful tool in HTA in that it will significantly speed up systematic reviews, and decrease the risk of bias in syntheses of findings from research.