- What is Medical Technology?
The procedures, processes, and equipment used to deliver medical care are defined by the term medical technology. New technology innovations may be in the fields such as pharmaceuticals and drugs, support systems, surgical and medical procedures (e. g., joint angioplasty procedures), and in medical devices such as CT scanners (Moseley).
- Factors Driving Medical Technology
There are many factors driving innovation in healthcare. One of the most important factors is consumer demand, which becomes prevalent as the people of the nation become wealthier. This is reflected in their desire for better medical care, often perceived as implementation of new innovations.
The media, Internet, and direct-to-consumer advertising increase consumer demand for new innovations.
Innovation is also driven by health insurance systems. Normally, new technologies are associated with high costs and hence inability to afford them by patients. If medical insurance companies come forward to pay for new medical products, researchers and hospitals will willingly invest time, money and energy in technology and research.
Also, new technology is patronized and implemented by medical practitioners who want to provide top-notch care for their patients by using them. Providers compete with their counterparts to provide the “latest and best” in medical care to their patients. Medical professionals are constantly looking to improving their practice, and novel technologies may help them reach their ambitious goals.
Many pharmaceuticals are investing highly in research and development to meet increased consumer demand and practitioner’s need for better healthcare approaches.
There are a number of technological developments in many areas in the medical field. Technological innovations are seen to happen in the fields such as biosensors and in-vitro diagnostics and imaging that may aid in early diagnosis, in the development of lighter devices and advanced materials, while improvements in technology for ageing populations such as orthopaedic implants and nerve regeneration and innovations in blood sugar sensors and delivery pumps and drug eluting stents are being witnessed. Robot-assisted surgeries are seeing great improvements and implementations too. We shall discuss robotic surgeries, their implementations and costs associated in the next section.
- Robotic-Assisted Surgeries
Cost growth is predominantly driven by technological innovations (Rettig). A technology may not be understood fully for its merits or demerits; yet, it is embraced by doctors. These technologies may lead to an increase in cost of treatment. Let us consider the case of robotic-assisted surgeries in such a context. Robotic surgery devices enable a surgeon to operate robotic arms. These robotic arms are remote controlled and are mainly employed in performing laparoscopic surgeries and procedures.
There are many advantages associated with laparoscopy surgeries. They are:
- Shorter hospital stays as compared to open surgeries,
- Less postoperative pain;
- Less scarring;
- Decreased risk of infections; and
- Lesser requirement for blood transfusions.
Robotic techniques have been rapidly implemented both in the US and Europe over the past 4 years. According to Intuitive Surgical, ad Vinci’s manufacturer, the number of ad Vinci systems that were installed in the US grew by almost 75%. The total number of systems increased from 800 to 1,400 in US hospitals alone during this period.
The introduction of robotic-assisted surgeries in the field of laparoscopy is seen to increase the costs associated with each procedure. In contrast to procedures performed as open surgeries, the cost as well as volume of surgeries increased with introduction of robotic assistance.
This is because robotic surgical systems come with a high fixed cost that ranges from $1 million to $2.5 million for each unit. Also, to become familiar with robotic procedures, surgeons need to be perform 150-250 such procedures. The robotic system is costly to maintain and also requires expensive consumables, additionally. Also, the robot-assisted surgeries may consume more time than normal surgeries.
The advantage in using robotic-assisted surgeries may be when postoperative hospital costs reduce and when realizing additional productivity when the patient is able to return to office or work sooner.
Indirect influences on public and private insurers may be felt by these additional expenditures by hospitals. At present, Medicare does not provide payment for robot-assisted surgeries, although procedure- and diagnosis-related codes exist for these.
- Conclusion
Robot-assisted surgery has not been subjected to large-scale, randomized trials up to the present times. Due to lack of proper observational evidence, there is no proper light shed on whether robot-assisted surgeries are better than conventional ones (Hu et al.). It is essential to conduct large-scale, multicenter, thoroughly designed trials to determine which patients benefit from robot-assisted surgeries. The information so obtained can be used by physicians to discuss treatment options with patients and for patients to make well-informed decisions on treatment choices. Thus, it is vital that the healthcare systems where new technologies are implemented are run efficiently so that medical practitioners and patients alike can make suitable choices on whether to use new innovative technologies, even if medical reimbursement firms do not pay for the expenses incurred for these new technologies.
Works Cited
- Hu J. C, X. Gu, S. R. Lipsitz, et al. “Comparative Effectiveness Of Minimally Invasive Vs Open Radical Prostatectomy”. JAMA. 302.1 2009: 557-64.
- Moseley III, George B. “Changing Conditions for Medical Technology in the Health Care Industry” Presented before the OGI School of Science and Engineering, Oregon Health and Science University, October 18, 2005.
- Rettig, Richard A. “Medical Innovation Duels Cost Containment,” Health Affairs (Summer 1994): 15.
