Rapid Evaluations of Innovations: A Scoping Review

Abstract BackgroundThere is increasing demand for more rapid evaluation of innovation in health and social care to support timely decision-making about service redesign. Making evaluations more rapid raises challenges of rigour and effective use of resources, but assessment of rapid evaluation methodologies has been lacking. Objectives: To map the developing field of methods of rapid evaluation of innovation in health and related social careDesign: Scoping reviewMethods: We searched multiple databases and websites of key organisations to identify rapid evaluations of innovations, methods of rapid evaluation or rapid evaluation of implementation in high income countries.We extracted information to enable us to classify and map existing studies on key characteristics. We undertook a narrative synthesis to identify the evidence and the gaps, focussing on the different approaches to conducting rapid evaluation in primary research. ResultsWe identified 14069 records from our searches, evaluated 352 in full text and included 72 studies. We identified four main approaches used for rapid evaluation: (1) Use of a methodology designed specifically for rapid evaluation;(2) Increasing rapidity by doing less or using a less time-intensive methodology;(3) Use of alternative technologies and/or data to increase the speed of an existing evaluation method; (4) Adaptation of part of a non-rapid evaluation We found little research comparing rapid and non-rapid evaluation.ConclusionsThis scoping review identified a lack of clarity about what ‘rapid evaluation’ means but identified useful preliminary categories. There is a need for clarity and consistency in terms of: what constitutes rapid evaluation; consistent terminology in reporting evaluations as rapid; the development of specific methodologies for making evaluation more rapid; and assessment of the advantages and disadvantages of rapid methodology in terms of rigour, cost and impact.