A systematic review of the medical literature and a manual review of the web pages of national and international HTA agencies/bodies were conducted in order to locate reference documents and retrieve reports of different experiences in the monitoring/follow-up of new technologies. On the basis of these findings, 4 possible data-collection instruments were proposed: clinical registries, questionnaires/surveys, medical records (paper and electronic format) and available electronic databases such as Minimum Basic Set of Data (MBDS).

To evaluate the advantages and limitations, and establish the possibility of using each of these for post-introduction observation, a specific systematic search was conducted for each instrument in Medline, Cochrane and CRD HTA. Only relevant studies published from 2005 onwards were considered for assessment purposes. The search strategy and the selection criteria are documented in the full version of the guideline published in the web page of avalia-t.