Using the Delphi Method to Support Effective Market Access
For data-driven decision-making in healthcare, structured consensus techniques that gather expert opinions are particularly valuable, especially when data from clinical trials is uncertain or insufficient. Tapping into the knowledge and experience of specialists can provide strong insights to support decision-making in an increasingly complex healthcare environment.
The Delphi Method offers a structured, robust approach to gather expert opinions through anonymous surveys, addressing the need for expert-driven insights drawn from real-world experiences. Participants – such as clinicians, researchers, and patient advocates, refine their views in response to feedback from the group, working toward a consensus. This process ensures decisions are based on a broad range of expertise, enabling faster and more accurate decision-making.
The Delphi Method stands out for its ability to incorporate diverse perspectives and reduce bias. Through anonymous participation, it minimizes undue influence of more prominent individuals, leading to more objective, collectively relevant conclusions. This makes it a powerful tool for supporting better, more informed decisions, for instance, in areas such as market access.
How the Delphi method supports the use of new therapies and technologies
The Delphi Method helps in the evaluation of new therapies, especially in rapidly advancing fields like oncology, gene therapy, and biologics, or in emerging diseases such as viruses , where existing data is often scarce, incomplete or developing. Additionally, as new treatments emerge, particularly those that involve personalized medicine or targeted therapies, traditional trial data might not fully capture the long-term effects or the complexity of these treatments in diverse patient populations.
For instance, in oncology, experts can offer insights into the likely effectiveness of a new drug, its impact on quality of life, and how it compares to existing treatments. Experts can also help define meaningful clinical endpoints and patient populations for future trials, ensuring that the research focuses on the most critical unmet needs and risks.
Using consensus techniques can also help integrate innovations into clinical workflows by reducing uncertainties around safety, efficacy, and value, ensuring that the most effective approaches can be offered to benefit patients.
Consensus studies can play a crucial role in supporting access to emerging technologies. The speed at which new technologies are developed often outpaces the availability of comprehensive data, which could make expert consensus an essential part of the decision-making process.
For example, Triducive assisted a leader in medical imaging by gathering expert opinions from US-based radiologists on the use of AI in radiology, identifying key concerns and potential benefits to support its integration, in response to new FDA guidelines. A Nominal Group Technique (NGT) consensus was employed in this instance to generate data in only a few days.
Health Technology Assessments and the use of the Delphi method
Health Technology Assessment (HTA) agencies are responsible for evaluating new health technologies, considering clinical evidence, cost-effectiveness, economic impact, quality of life, and social or ethical considerations. HTAs help decision-makers, such as health authorities and insurance providers, determine whether a technology should be reimbursed or included in healthcare systems.
Clinical trial data alone often fails to capture the full complexities and uncertainties surrounding new health technologies, which is where structured consensus methods like the Delphi Method are valuable.
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) in the UK supports the use of expert opinion (termed structured expert elicitation (SEE) by NICE) within its HTA methods manual stating that it “could be used to supplement, support, or refute any observed data from RCTs or non-randomised studies (including drug usage evaluations, cross-sectional studies or case studies)”. A study screening 25 single technology assessments appraised by NICE between October 2018 and April 2019 found that 23 included some form of expert elicitation, highlighting the agency’s strong consideration of expert opinion. In France, the Haute Autorité de Santé (HAS) is also known to incorporate structured consensus outputs in evaluations, having released a methodology guide for it.
The inclusion of expert opinion by agencies could be crucial, especially when evidence is still evolving, to ensure informed and timely decisions, such as in the case of emerging diseases and new therapies.
Summary
The Delphi Method provides a powerful tool for supporting market approval. By gathering and synthesizing diverse expert opinions at the early stages of the product life-cycle, it allows for more informed, early decision-making, which can ultimately enhance healthcare outcomes for patients. The Delphi Method should be considered, whenever possible, to support Health Technology Assessments (HTAs), particularly in the case of emerging diseases, new therapies, or new technologies.
At Triducive we deliver consensus-led evidence that gets published and supports change. Our team, with a strong background in healthcare, has been delivering Delphi consensus for over ten years, boasting over fifty peer-reviewed publications, and fostering positive change.
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