Abstract
A major driver of cost growth in health care is the rapid increase in the utilisation of existing technology and not simply the adoption of new technology. Health economists and their health technology assessment colleagues have become obsessed by technology adoption questions and have largely ignored 'technology management' questions. Technology management would include the life-cycle assessment of technologies in use, to assess their real-world performance; and monitoring of technology indication creep. A rebalancing of focus might serve to encourage a more self-critical and learning culture amongst those involved in technology evaluation analysis. Further, health economists and health technology assessment analysts could make a more significant contribution to system efficiency through rebalancing their efforts away from technology adoption questions towards technology management issues.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 379-383 |
| Number of pages | 5 |
| Journal | Health Economics |
| Volume | 23 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| Early online date | 4 Mar 2014 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - Apr 2014 |
Bibliographical note
Copyright © 2014 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 2012 Symposium of the Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH), and at the June 2012 UK Health Economists' Study Group meeting. We would like to thank Penny Mullen for her discussion and session participants at both meetings for helpful comments.
Keywords
- technology evaluation
- technology adoption decision-making
- technology management
