| Abstract: | The introduction of a new medical technology can have indirect, unintended, or unanticipated effects on individuals or on social systems. Although these impacts result from the widespread use of the technology, many of them can be predicted while the technology is being developed. A method for systematically identifying and evaluating these impacts is technology assessment. Such an assessment, made while a technology is being developed, could provide useful information for decision making about research and development and in planning for the technology's eventual introduction. Because only a few medical technologies have been formally assessed and because the process of medical technology development is poorly understood, one must be cautious in recommending widespread use of technology assessment. Nevertheless, enough is now known to permit the formulation of approaches that could be used in preliminary attempts at medical technology assessment.Dr. Banta is with the National Center for Health Services Research, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Hyattsville, Md. 20782 and Dr. Sanes is with the Department of Physiology, University of California at San Francisco 94117. This paper is based on a report,Development of Medical Terminology: Opportunities for Assessment, prepared for the Senate Committee on Labor and Public Welfare by the Office of Technology Assessment; it was developed by the authors with the assistance of an expert advisory panel chaired by Eugene A. Stead, Jr., M.D. The Office of Technology Assessment was established by statute in 1972 to provide objective policy analysis to committees of Congress on issues concerning science and technology. A health program was developed beginning in 1975. The report cited above is the first product of that program and is available from the U.S. Government Printing Office. |
