Detection of obsolete health technologies is complex. Proof of this is the existence of different definitions of what is to be understood by obsolete health technology, with the term “obsolete” being different from “ineffective” or “inefficient”.
At a global level, it was not until relatively recently that health organisations began paying real attention to obsolete health technologies. Excluding methodology pertaining to reduction in costs and use of marginal analyses for elimination of technologies in financially unsustainable systems -something that falls outside the goal of this guide- there is hardly any literature published on methodology suitable for being used for identification, prioritisation and assessment of obsolete health technologies. This reflects the need to have a guide which can be used by health organisations or professionals to assess obsolete health technologies, or even as a basis for drawing up their own guidelines to assess this type of health technology.
The document will provide guidance as to how potentially obsolete health technologies can be identified, which key aspects are to be taken into account when it comes to prioritising those technologies in most urgent need of assessment, and what the most essential aspects of such assessment are. In this latter section, the guide will set forth the structure that an obsolete health technology report should have and what information each section should contain.