PNS67 Gaining Trust in the Use of Virtual Meetings for Health Technology Assessment during the COVID-19 Pandemic

Objectives: The Scottish Medicines Consortium (SMC) is the national HTA agency for medicines. Due to the ongoing pandemic, all multi-stakeholder meetings moved to a virtual setting. This study evaluated user satisfaction, captured any technical issues, and identified what worked well and areas for improvement in order to establish stakeholder confidence in the ongoing use of virtual meetings. Methods: A SmartSurvey consisting of 13 questions was distributed to participants of the three main committees of SMC: the New Drugs Committee (NDC);Patient and Clinician Engagement (PACE);and SMC committee and covered meetings held June-October 2020. Meetings were held using a combination of MS Teams and Zoom videoconferencing. The choice of platform reflected availability of wider functionality for example, break out rooms for private voting by ballot. In addition to SMC staff, meeting attendees included committee members (NDC, SMC), patient group representatives/advocates (PACE, SMC), pharmaceutical company representatives (SMC), and clinical experts (PACE). Results: 155 respondents completed the survey including attendees of NDC (n=47), PACE (n=15), and SMC meetings (n=93). 98% of respondents for NDC, 100% for PACE, and 89% for SMC rated their experience of attending virtually as “very good” or “good”. Most respondents found the technology easy to use (98%, 93%, and 95% respectively). Areas for improvement included: duration and comfort breaks;when to have cameras on;consistency of presentation slides;and discussion or social setting. Implementation of suggested improvements is ongoing. Reduced travel was one of the most valued aspects: “What … worked well is that all interested parties could attend, without geography/travel being a potential barrier” (Patient group representative/advocate). Conclusions: Across all committees, user satisfaction with virtual meetings was high and technical issues were minimal. Virtual meetings have important implications for the accessibility of HTA decision-making, beyond the pandemic.