Access to Medical Technology Innovations: A Proposal for a Value of Innovation and Partnership Model

Truly innovative medical technology offerings are likely to have a strong impact on patients, health systems, and society, transforming healthcare as delivered today for the better. While these innovations may warrant a particular reward, they are increasingly facing difficulties in achieving health system and patient access as their introduction may require additional investment and/or structural changes in the healthcare delivery system and their full-added value at the point of market entry is still unknown.

In this opinion paper, Professor Lieven Annemans (Vrije Universiteit Brussel and Ghent University) introduces the ‘value of innovation and partnership model’ (VIP model) to facilitate the adoption and uptake of medical technology innovations. The VIP model translates key principles of value-based healthcare into the adoption and uptake of innovative medical technologies/solutions – with a particular focus on truly innovative ones. Applying a partnership approach, it seeks to provide the right incentive structure which can ensure value-based investments in healthcare and timely access to innovation for the benefit of patients, healthcare providers, citizens, and society across the EU. While respecting the specificities of each EU Member States’ health system, this model provides a solid framework to harmonise processes and criteria within the EU for broadly introducing medical technology innovation in care delivery.