The Economics of Medical Technology: Proceedings of an International Conference on Economics of Medical Technology (Health Systems Research)

Technological development has created major possibilities for the treatment of disease and for the disabled. The cost of new technologies has added considerably to health care cost intlation, which still exceeds the growth rates of most national economies. The share of national resources devoted to health care is still rising, although at a lesser pace than in the seventies. -Therefore, the use of medical technology confronts us with some of the major dilemmas in society today. The routine and intensive use of technology has transformed the most basic interpersonal and social features of medicine. It has altered the means through which patient and doctor communicate about illness as well as the content of this communication, changed the doctor's relationship to medical colleagues by increasing his dependence on them, altered the place and form of practice by creating advantages for the centralization of medical care in complex organizations, and created for society new responsibilities and powers to influence the context and scope of medical practice. Front Matter....Pages I-VIII Introduction....Pages 1-2 The Early Assessment of Health Care Technology: Introducing the Artificial Heart....Pages 3-9 The Marketplace for Medical Technology....Pages 10-15 The Transfer of Medical Technology in Developing Countries: The Case of Brazil....Pages 16-24 Public Control of the Diffusion of Health Technology....Pages 25-32 Diffusion of Medical Technology: A Case Study of Policy in Europe and the Netherlands....Pages 33-43 Economic Techniques for Technology Assessment....Pages 44-53 Technology Assessment in Europe: Its Present and Future Roles....Pages 54-79 A Working View of Technology Assessment: The Case of Digital Subtraction Angiography....Pages 80-89 Changing Environment: Decentralized Use of Medical Technology....Pages 90-98 The Birth and Development of an Innovation: The Case of Magnetic Resonance Imaging....Pages 99-108 Economics and the Rational Use of Medical Technology....Pages 109-120 Ethical Aspects of Medical Technology....Pages 121-126 Educational Aspects of the Economics of Medical Technology....Pages 127-134 General Conclusions....Pages 135-140 Held at Valkenburg, Limburg, Netherlands, September 2-4, 1985