Student: Edgar José Sanches Mascarenhas

Title: “Advancing Decision Conferencing practice: from novel concepts and tools to applications for paediatric health technology assessment in hospital settings”

Date: 16/12/2025

Time: 09:30 (Lisbon Time)

Location:  Amphitheatre PA-3, Mathematics Building (-1 floor)

Supervisor: Professora Mónica Duarte Correia de Oliveira (IST)

Co-supervisor: Professor Ricardo Miguel Ribeiro Marques Cunha Fernandes (FMUL)

Brief description of the research work: Decision Conferencing (DCing) has been employed to support group decision-making within organisational settings; however, its theoretical foundations and adaptation to new collaborative dynamics remain insufficiently explored. In particular, little attention has been given to how DCing should evolve to accommodate digital collaboration, remote work, and its application in contexts with limited evidence where diverse stakeholder input is critical, such as in paediatric decision-making. This thesis advances DCing theory and practice by exploring how recent research insights, digital tools, and structured facilitation methods can enhance its effectiveness, with a particular focus on hospital-based health technology assessment (HTA) of paediatric medical devices. The research is grounded in four complementary studies. A systematic review synthesizes four decades of DCing scholarship, charting its evolution, applications, methodological diversity, research gaps, while establishing a structured roadmap for future work. A qualitative study, based on interviews with nineteen experienced DCing practitioners, examines facilitation in both in-person and virtual settings, highlighting challenges, best practices, and opportunities for digitally supported collaborative decision-making. A systematic review of economic evaluations of paediatric devices reveals methodological shortcomings, including inadequate consideration of child-specific outcomes, device characteristics, and stakeholder perspectives, underscoring the need for more flexible and context-sensitive assessment approaches. Finally, a multi-method case study in a paediatric hospital department combines interviews with a digitally enhanced collaborative process to co-create a value framework for assessing paediatric non-invasive ventilation equipment, offering actionable guidance for informed adoption decisions. Collectively, this thesis provides conceptual, methodological, and practical contributions to DCing, facilitated modelling, and hospital-based paediatric HTA.

Research Unit: Centre for Management Studies of IST (CEGIST)