We were discussing this article in my writing seminar on medical technology so, i figured i would use this post to highlight the fact that the exorbitant cost of Healthcare is largely due to medical Technology. This article is from 1991 but here are two more to pretty much the same effect from this year:
The first article discusses the progression of medical imagining technology and the rise in costs that comes with each advance. at the time it was written (and i see little reason to think that much has changed since the 90's): "Coronary bypass surgery... in the United States ... accounts for about $1 of every $50 spent on health care" even though "a study by the Rand Corporation ... found that more than 40 percent of such operations did very little, if anything, for the patients."
"magnetic resonance imaging alone is adding about $5 billion to the nation's health bill" while "90 percent of the time that neurologists order M.R.I. scans no structural damage to the patient's nervous system is detected."
The designers of medical technology always have a vested interest in seeing it used. In a filled where everyone feels entitled to the highest standard of care possible each new advance generally leads to increased costs across the board. While there is no denying the effectiveness of positron emission tomography and other highly advanced technologies; to reduce costs engineers cannot continue to always look to the most complicated solutions.
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