Environmental Sustainability of Digitalization in Manufacturing: A Review

The rapid development and implementation of digitalization in manufacturing has enormous impact on the environment. It is still unclear whether digitalization has positive or negative environmental impact from applications in manufacturing. Therefore, this study aims to discuss the overall implications of digitalization on environmental sustainability through a literature study, within the scope of manufacturing (product design, production, transportation, and customer service). The analysis and categorization of selected articles resulted in two main findings: (1) Digitalization in manufacturing contributes positively to environmental sustainability by increasing resource and information efficiency as a result of applying Industry 4.0 technologies throughout the product lifecycle; (2) the negative environmental burden of digitalization is primarily due to increased resource and energy use, as well as waste and emissions from manufacturing, use, and disposal of the hardware (the technology lifecycle). Based on these findings, a lifecycle perspective is proposed, considering the environmental impacts from both the product and technology lifecycles. This study identified key implications of digitalization on environmental sustainability in manufacturing to increase awareness of both the positive and negative impacts of digitalization and thereby support decision making to invest in new digital technologies.

PP150 Bevan Health Technology Exemplars: Early Dialogue To Systematize HTA

IntroductionWales has ambitious health, wealth, and innovation policies and a clear goal to use the economic muscle of the Welsh National Health Service (NHS) to support its strong life sciences sector. Health Technology Wales (HTW) has a clear remit to appraise technologies over the span of their lifecycle from innovation to obsolescence. HTW is collaborating with the Bevan Commission through their national Health Technology Exemplars (HTEs), which partners NHS and industry stakeholders to strengthen innovation within the Welsh health system.MethodsHealth technology assessment (HTA) methods were used to produce topic exploration reports for assessing the evidence underpinning applicant innovations. A “Dragons’ Den” expert panel was convened to select the successful HTEs.ResultsFourteen Bevan HTEs were awarded funds, which were matched by industry partners. Application of HTA methods resulted in more critical consideration of technology value propositions, including: developing pull models of innovation focused on delivering health technology solutions for current problems facing NHS Wales; supporting early dialogue between the NHS and industry partners around demonstrating evidence of improved patient outcomes; and focusing on transformative rather than incremental innovation. The most promising innovations will progress to rapid HTA, where the evidence generated will be used to develop guidance for NHS Wales.ConclusionsHTA methods were productively deployed at the innovation phase of the technology lifecycle to support evidence-informed allocation of scarce innovation resources. In this way, HTW is working with key stakeholders to identify and offer early support to the most promising innovations, with the aim of expediting their adoption and realizing health benefits for patients as quickly as possible. The Bevan Commission has partnered with HTW to routinely build in HTA and evidence considerations in its future innovation calls and competitions. Thus, HTW has established a “feeder” pipeline for assessing bottom-up service-led innovations and encouraging evidence consideration throughout the lifecycle of innovative technologies.

PP186 Telemonitoring With Pacemakers For Patients With Heart Failure

IntroductionEvidence supporting the use of pacemakers is well established. However, evidence about the optimal use of pacemaker telemonitoring for disease management in heart failure is not. Health Technology Wales (HTW) held a national adoption event to encourage implementation and best practice in use of pacemaker telemonitoring in the National Health Service (NHS) Wales to improve patient outcomes in heart failure.MethodsMulti-stakeholder national adoption workshop using a mixture of expert presentations, case studies and interdisciplinary group and panel discussions to agree key actions to understand the value and promote optimal use of pacemakers for remote disease monitoring in patients with heart failure in Wales.ResultsThe workshop was attended by forty-five senior professionals with an interest in improving care of patients with heart failure. Actions to progress included: providing a centralized Welsh system to support technical issues that arise with telemonitoring; considering interoperability with other NHS Wales systems; encouraging value-based procurement with collection of a core outcome set; agreeing implementation issues with both professionals and patients; audit to understand experience, resource use and outcomes; and sharing manufacturer evidence on the accuracy of telemanagement algorithms. It was suggested that these actions be progressed via an All-Wales multi-stakeholder approach, led by the Welsh Cardiac Network.ConclusionsDeveloping a more agile, lifecycle approach to technology appraisal is currently advocated; recalibrating the focus from technology assessment to technology management across the complete technology lifecycle. HTW will endeavour through regular adoption events to facilitate such a paradigm shift that aims to understand value and optimise use of evidence-based technologies.

Unpacking the innovation toolbox for design research and practice

The terms design and innovation are intuitively related, but the relationship between these two concepts is more complex and subtle than it appears at first sight. Few authors have made rigorous attempts to explore this relationship in depth, and the contributions present in the literature generally suffer the specialist backgrounds on which they are grounded. Consequently, this paper provides a high-level synthesis of the innovation management domain and defines an original framework that allows the positioning of the concepts from Innovation Management that are most relevant for scholars and practitioners operating in the Design domain. Specifically, this framework provides a concise representation of the typologies of innovation activities along the technology lifecycle, and associates them to their business implications and to technical and organizational implications on the design process. This framework allows scholars and practitioners from both fields to identify the typical design challenges that are inherent to each type of innovation activity, and to evaluate the suitability of specific support methods and tools.

How to Deal with the Inevitable: Generating Real-World Data and Using Real-World Evidence for HTA Purposes – From Theory to Action

ObjectivesReal-world evidence (RWE), derived from real-world data (RWD), is already used, to some extent, for health technology assessment (HTA) purposes. With the increased availability of RWD, there is potential for more widespread use but also challenges ensuring reliable RWE for HTA. Opportunities to overcome key challenges, identified at a scoping meeting, were discussed during the 2019 HTA international (HTAi) Global Policy Forum (GPF).MethodsReflection of discussions using Design Thinking (an interactive process aimed to solve complex problems) between seventy-three representatives from not-for-profit, for-profit organizations, and HTAi leadership. The discussions were informed by a background paper, and presentations from three invited keynote speakers and eleven GPF members.ResultsSeveral options were listed for addressing the identified key challenges: quality and acceptability, governance and accountability, transferability, and informing decision making. The GPF emphasized that the HTA community should first understand what questions could be answered with RWE. Additionally, more clarity on methods, standards, streamlining RWD collection, data sharing across jurisdictions, replication of RWD, and expert analysis were mentioned as important priorities.ConclusionsThe HTA community is currently standing at a cross-road as it is not yet fully equipped to address these key challenges. It is, therefore, time for action. The community should start aligning on what is the best source of evidence according to purpose and how the data should be collected to create reliable evidence. It should also initiate the development of actions and guidance to properly develop and manage RWD/RWE to inform decision making across the technology lifecycle.