Technology Assessment

Many technologies are germane to health care. These technologies include information processing technologies, drug research, treatment methods, medical devices, and so on. A key decision that must be made is the selection of the optimum technology for a given situation. This selection must be based on key decision criteria that adequately consider the following:

• Estimated benefit of the technology
• Risk associated with utilizing the technology

The first decision criterion, estimated benefit of the technology, must be assessed giving consideration to several key factors. The first factor that must be considered is the estimated size of the population of people that could conceivably benefit from successful development of the technology. This size might be considered as a potential[Page 557] market size. This is the number of people who might use the technology. Also considered in evaluating this criterion is the relative benefit to the patient, the ultimate end beneficiary of the technology. For example, the potential to lower the cost of a treatment would not be given the same importance as the potential to develop a vaccine for a communicable disease, and a technology with the potential to relieve low levels of pain would not be given equal weight with a technology that has potential for greatly increasing the mobility of paraplegics.

The second decision criterion that should be used in the assessment of health care technologies is that of risk. This risk criterion should not be considered as a simple one-dimensional value. Rather, the risk spoken of here involves such considerations as

• Patient risk
• Risk to the caregiver
• Financial risk
• Risk of becoming obsolete
• And so on

The first of these is simply the risk of an adverse impact on the patient. Assessing this should include consideration of the probability of adverse health reactions versus the patient's current condition. For example, more possible risk to the patient may be acceptable if the patient is severely distressed and their chances of recovery are low. The risk to the caregiver should also be considered. A technology should not be used if there is an inherent danger to the person using the technology for the patient's benefit. The financial risk is the most pure economic assessment. However, when assessing health care technologies consideration should be given to the cost of the technology, the expected allowable costs to be paid by insurance companies, and the possibility of obtaining government-sponsored grants.

Assessing health care technologies must include consideration of many factors, some of which are objective and some, subjective.