The Health Care Horizon Scanning System provides a systematic process to identify healthcare interventions that have high potential to alter the current standard of care.
The PCORI Health Care Horizon Scanning System (HCHSS) conducts horizon scanning of new and emerging health care technologies and innovations with high potential for disruption to the current standard of care to better inform patient-centered outcomes research investments at PCORI.
The HCHSS provides PCORI with a systematic process to identify and monitor technologies and innovations in health care that are in PCORI’s priority areas of interest and to create an inventory of interventions that have the highest potential for disruption to the current standard of care in terms of patient outcomes, health disparities, care delivery, infrastructure, access, and/or costs. It will also be a tool for the public to identify information on selected new health care technologies and interventions. Any investigator or funder of research will be able to use the PCORI HCHSS to help select research topics.
The PCORI HCHSS produces quarterly Status Reports, which summarize key data elements for all topics currently monitored in the system and, if applicable, topics archived since the last Status Report. The reports are organized into six sections: Alzheimer’s Disease and Other Dementias, Cancer, Cardiovascular Diseases, Mental and Behavioral Health, Rare Diseases, and Potentially Disruptive Trends.
September 2020 | June 2020 | March 2020 | December 2019 | September 2019 | June 2019 | March 2019
Individuals with vested interests in new technologies, services, and innovations typically provide critical insights and information about the areas in which they have a vested interest. Their perspectives may include their vision and plans for how they intend to carry out adoption of a technology, service, or innovation. Twice a year, analysts review all topics for which stakeholder comments have been received in the previous 15 months.
May 2020 | November 2019 | May 2019
This document outlines the basic protocol and decision processes used to scan for leads, select interventions and trends for monitoring, and identify interventions in each priority area and trends across all clinical areas with high potential to cause disruption to health care in the United States.
Horizon Scanning COVID-19 Supplement
In early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic created a fast-moving, widespread public health crisis. In May 2020, PCORI expanded its Health Care Horizon Scanning System (HCHSS) to elucidate the landscape of potentially impactful applications for COVID-19. The HCHSS COVID-19 supplement scans for, identifies, monitors, and reports on emerging and available COVID-19-related treatments, diagnostics, preventive measures, management strategies, and systems changes with potential for high impact to patient outcomes—for individuals and populations—in the United States in the next 12 months.
The HCHSS COVID-19 supplement produces 3 main outputs: Biweekly COVID-19 Scans, Status Reports that are published quarterly, and High Impact Reports that are published every 4 months. Learn more below.
The Biweekly COVID-19 Scans provide ECRI Horizon Scanning with a vehicle to inform PCORI and the public in a timely manner of important topics of interest identified during ongoing scanning and topic identification or through the ECRI stakeholder survey process.
The Status Reports summarize key data elements for all COVID-19 topics monitored in the PCORI Health Care Horizon Scanning System and, if applicable, recently archived topics. Each report is organized into six sections: devices, identifiable risk factors and prognostic indicators, screening and diagnostics, systems and management, treatments, and vaccines and prophylaxis. The reports are published every three months.
October 2020 | July 2020
High Impact Reports highlight topics that stakeholders (including physicians, nurses, allied health professionals, public health professionals, first responders, health systems experts, clinical engineers, researchers, as well as business, finance, and information technology professionals) have identified as having potential for high impact relative to COVID-19 in the United States. The reports are published every four months.
September 2020
This document supplements the PCORI HCHSS Protocol and Operations Manual by describing the horizon scanning process related to the COVID-19 pandemic. The goal of the PCORI HCHSS COVID-19 supplement is not to predict future utilization and costs of any health care innovation; rather, it is intended to help inform and guide planning and prioritization of research resources.
Posted: June 11, 2019; Updated: November 10, 2020