The Medical Digital Solution scoring tool or MDS (http://mdscs.fr), produced by the « Institut National de la e-Santé », (INeS) [ National Institute of eHealth], was presented in the Journal of Medical Internet Research (JMIR), article published on July 7, 2022. MDS was designed with the help of 130 e-health solution publishers, hospitals and physicians, healthcare authorities, e-Health researchers and experts, patient associations. This scoring tool is based on 4 evaluation axes and 25 questions selected from questionnaires used by the French National Health Authority (or HAS) as well as from other existing scores (ORCHA, Mars…). MDS is intended for use by healthcare stakeholder decision makers (providers and hospitals, healthcare institutions, investors, e-health incubators and startups, etc.) seeking to quickly evaluate the quality of an eHealth solution by analyzing its strengths and weaknesses, and, ultimately, its reimbursement potential.
🏅INeS labeling solutions 🏅. After applying the MDS scoring tool, and if the solution achieves a score of 14/20 (the first study quartile) or higher, the board of 22 INeS experts then proceeds to an in-depth qualitative analysis of each solution in order to assess its eligibility for an INeS label.
We, at INeS, hope that this new tool will help raise the evidence levels for digital health solutions, which are often weak, as demonstrated in our own evaluation and according to other recent articles on the subject.