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Health Care Technology and Its Assessment in Eight Countries
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Date: Wed, 22 Mar 95 10:31:01 -0500
From: Linda Long
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U.S. CONGRESS OFFICE OF TECHNOLOGY ASSESSMENT Washington, DC 20510
HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY AND ITS ASSESSMENT IN EIGHT COUNTRIES
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The OTA background paper "Health Care Technology and Its Assessment in Eight Countries" is now available. Ordering information and details about electronic access are at the end of this file.
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OTA EXAMINES HEALTH CARE TECHNOLOGY IN EIGHT COUNTRIES
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The rising cost of health care continues to be the most important health policy issue throughout the industrialized world. The biggest source of increased spending is the increasing rate at which goods and services are consumed in health care, driven in part by the rapidity of technological change.
Today the private sector and government in all countries are increasingly using technology assessment to find ways to keep costs down, says the congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). However, other countries have been more aggressive than the United States at controlling the introduction of "big-ticket" items of medical technology, such as CT scanners, magnetic resonance imagers and centers for heart surgery, says OTA.
In a newly-published background paper, OTA examines the recent experience of the United States and seven of its international peers--Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and the United Kingdom--with medical technology and its assessment. Experts in each country wrote about their health care systems and about the public and private sector institutions that assess medical technology. They described how selected technologies fared in each country and what role technology assessment played in their diffusion and utilization.
Some of the key findings of the paper are:
* Technological innovation is strong in the United States and is a major contributor to escalating health care costs.* Americans use more of expensive medical technologies and have access to them sooner than their international cousins.* The United States is the world leader in the methods of health care technology assessment and technology assessment is thriving at all levels of the private and public sectors.* Most efforts to apply the results of technology assessment in the United States aim at influencing the purchase and utilization of technology by hospital administrators, heads of clinical departments, and physicians and other health care providers. Managed care organizations increasingly use technology assessment formulate institutional and clinical policies.* Despite increased use, technology assessment has had relatively little overall impact on the diffusion of medical technology in the United States. In some other countries with mechanisms for controlling technology diffusion at the national level, technology assessment has had great influence.* At least until recently, the health care marketplace has acted to accelerate rather than slow down the diffusion of medical technology in the United States. As pressure to keep costs down continues to build, the market may respond by tightening the reins on expensive technology.
The paper presents six case studies: 1) treatments for coronary artery disease; 2) medical imaging; 3) laparoscopic surgery; 4) treatments for end-stage renal disease (kidney failure); 5) neonatal intensive care units; and 6) screening for breast cancer.
The background paper, "Health Care Technology and Its Assessment in Eight Countries," is the latest publication in the assessment of International Differences in Health Care Technology and Costs.
For copies of the 384-page background paper for congressional use, please call (202) 224-9241. To order copies for noncongressional use, indicate stock number 052-003-01402-5 and send your check for $23.00 a copy or provide your VISA or MasterCard number and expiration date to Superintendent of Documents, P.O. Box 371954, Pittsburgh, PA 15250-7974, [FAX (202) 512-2250] or call (202) 512-0132 (GPO's main bookstore). Federal Express service is available for an additional $8.50 per order. For free 4-page summaries, please call (202) 224-8996. The full background paper is available electronically.
Readers can access this background paper electronically through OTA Online via the following standard Internet tools:
WWW: http://www.ota.gov
FTP: otabbs.ota.gov; login as anonymous, password is your e- mail address; files are in the /pub/health.8countries directory
Telnet: otabbs.ota.gov; login as public, password is public.
Additional features of OTA Online are available through client software with a graphical user interface for Microsoft Windows. This software is available free through the WWW home page or by contacting the OTA Telecommunications and Information Systems Office, (202) 228-6000, or email sysop@ota.gov Direct questions or comments on Internet services by email to netsupport@ota.gov
OTA is a nonpartisan analytical agency that serves the U.S. Congress. Its purpose is to aid Congress with the complex and often highly technical issues that increasingly affect our society. ```
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