An international panel of senior Health technology Assessment (HTA) leaders share their insights and experiences on how AI is being incorporated into HTA processes, and how HTA can address AI to create opportunities for improved patient outcomes and cost-effective health care delivery. Pascale Lehoux is a member of the panel as scientific vice-president of the Institut national d’excellence en santé et en services sociaux (INESSS).
Gérard-Parizeau 2024 Award
Pascale Lehoux is the recipient of the Gérard-Parizeau 2024 Award. On this occasion, she presented a lecture entitled “Responsible innovation in healthcare at the interface of economic and healthcare policies. Or how to think outside the box when considering the governance of innovation in the 21st century? You can watch it on the conference website.
Inovação Responsável em Saúde
Hudson Silva participated to a webinar on Responsible Health Innovation organized by the Vice-Rectorate of Graduate Studies and Research of the Federal University of São Paulo. The webinar is available online (in Portuguese).
Journal of Social Entrepreneurship
Little is known about the way Social Finance (SF) experts conceptualise and align the resources they provide to impact-driven ventures (IDVs). This paper investigates 1) the tools SF experts apply to guide business model development of their investees and 2) the activities they perceive as value-adding or value-subtracting. Findings suggest that different strategies for business model advice are adopted, reflecting a spectrum of investor involvement levels, and that a wide range of activities have the potential to either add significant value to IDVs or detract them from their goals.
Silva, H. P., Lehoux, P., Pozelli Sabio, R. (2024). The multifaceted role of social finance in supporting social entrepreneurship: A qualitative inquiry into business tools and value-adding and subtracting activities. Journal of Social Entrepreneurship.
International Journal of Health Policy and Management
Applying the Responsible Innovation in Health (RIH) framework, this study describes the enablers and constraints to the development, procurement and/or utilisation of responsible Digital Health Technologies (DHTs) in health organisations. It highlights organisational and systemic factors related to: 1) the presence of an organisational culture that promotes RIH in its innovation-related practices and processes; 2) the availability of material and financial resources as well as expertise in certain fields (eg, environmental sustainability); 3) the evolution of health technology assessment (HTA) practices to include other dimensions beyond effectiveness, safety, and costs; 4) the scope of the regulatory and legal frameworks that govern the approval and use of DHTs; and 5) the role of the market (eg, venture capital) in the design of federal and provincial innovation policies.
Alami, H., Lehoux, P., Shaw, S. E., Niang, M., Malas, K., Fortin, J.-P. (2024). To what extent can digital health technologies comply with the principles of responsible innovation? Practice- and policy-oriented research insights regarding an organisational and systemic issue. International Journal of Health Policy and Management. 13, 8061,
BMC Health Services Research
Despite their promises, the integration of Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies integration within healthcare organisations and systems remains limited. This study applies the Non-Adoption, Abandonment, Scale-up, Spread, Sustainability (NASSS) framework to generate a better understanding of the systemic challenges observed in a leading Canadian academic hospital. It adds to current knowledge and can inform decision-making towards a judicious, responsible, and sustainable integration of these technologies in healthcare organisations and systems.
Alami, H., Lehoux, P., Papoutsi, C., Shaw, S., Fleet, R., Fortin, J.-P. (2024). Understanding the integration of artificial intelligence in health systems through the NASSS framework: A qualitative study in a leading Canadian academic centre. BMC Health Services Research. 24, 701
Digital Health
This article: 1) explores stakeholders’ perspectives on integrating the environmental impacts of Digital Health Technologies (DHTs) in assessment and procurement practices; 2) identifies the factors enabling or constraining the operationalisation of such a change; and 3) encourages a constructive dialogue on how environmental issues fit within healthcare systems’ push for more DHTs. Considering the micro-, meso-, and macro-systemic factors involved, a better understanding of the complexity inherent in the environmental shift in healthcare is needed.
Alami, H., Rivard, L., Lehoux, P., Ag Ahmed, M.A., Fortin, J-P, Fleet, R. (2023). Integrating environmental considerations in digital health technology assessment and procurement: Stakeholders’ perspectives. Digital Health. 9.
Agriculture and Human Values
This critical review of the scientific literature on Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) in food systems (published between 2017 and 2023) summarises why, what and how responsibility is integrated in food systems. There is a need to develop more collaborative and reflexive work to unlock RRI’s potential to inform policy and practice that can foster more responsive and inclusive food systems capable of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Pozelli Sabio, R., Lehoux, P. (2024). Responsible research and innovation in food systems: a critical review of the literature and future research avenues. Agriculture and Human Values.
RIH Playbook
This aim of this playbook is to help innovators attend to the social, economic, and environmental impacts of their innovations and to guide innovation stakeholders in the scaling of a responsible health innovation ecosystem.
It summarises many of the lessons we have learned from our projects with sixteen small- and medium-sized enterprises involved in developing responsible health innovations, and with a number of social finance actors in Canada and Brazil. It offers action points for entrepreneurs, healthcare managers, managers of innovation incubators and accelerators, and decision-makers involved in health policies and in innovation policies.
- Lehoux, P., Silva, H.P, and Rivard, L. (2024). Responsible Innovation in Health Playbook. Lessons-learned and action points for health innovation stakeholders. The In Fieri Research Program: Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
- Este guia também está disponível em português.
Business, Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility
This study explores the relationship between the entrepreneurial skillsets of 16 Canadian and Brazilian for-profits and not-for-profits producing Responsible Innovations in Health (RIH) and their degree of responsibility. We identify four skillsets: Technical, Technical + Business, Social, and Social + Business. Findings associated to the overall RIH score are intriguing: the presence of business skills appears to mediate the relationship between skillsets and the degree of responsibility. This may be linked to ordinary capabilities —“doing things right”— and dynamic capabilities —“doing the right things.” Because “falling in love” with RIH is not sufficient, there is a need to properly orchestrate capabilities to reconcile economic and social goals.
Lehoux, P., Silva, H.P., Denis-, J.-L, Morioka, S.N., Harfoush, N., Sabio, R.P. (2023). What entrepreneurial skillsets support responsible value creation in health and social care? A mixed methods study. Business, Ethics, the Environment & Responsibility.