New medical technologies--pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and procedures--often allow great improvements in the outcomes of medical care, but they are also widely believed to be a major cause of increasing costs. Selective adoption of new technologies is crucial in the quest to control health care costs while preserving or enhancing the quality of care. This report focuses on evaluation and adoption of innovative procedures and medical devices by managed care organizations (MCOs). The project had two primary objectives: (1) to understand current MCO processes for making coverage, medical-necessity, and payment decisions and how device developers and manufacturers prepare for and participate in these processes; and (2) to identify ways that private, voluntary action by the managed-care and medical-device industries might improve--for the benefit of society--these processes. The core data are from confidential interviews with eight companies that develop and manufacture medical devices and medical directors of nine MCOs. The findings should be of interest to medical-device developers and manufacturers, managed care organizations, public-policy makers, and researchers and analysts. A major impediment to socially appropriate adoption of emerging medical technologies is limited information about the performance of these technologies in day-to-day medical practice. The authors discuss prospects for improving four elements of information availability: --Developing better information before market introduction --Learning more from experience after market introduction --Evaluating and synthesizing clinical information --Disseminating information. They also discuss several other issues that warrant consideration: --Aligning private incentives of MCOs and payers with social values --Enhancing MCO capabilities to evaluate technologies and make decisions --Improving decisions by physicians --Reducing use of inappropriate or obsolete technologies --Reducing costs of decisionmaking for manufacturers and MCOs --Improving manufacturer understanding of the market environment --Helping MCOs and employers anticipate what is in the pipeline.

New medical technologies pharmaceuticals, medical devices, and procedures often allow great improvements in the outcomes of medical care, but they are also widely believed to be a major cause of increasing costs. Selective adoption of new technologies, the taking on of only those technologies for which the medical benefits exceed the costs to society of developing and using them, is a crucial element in the quest to control health care costs while preserving or enhancing the quality of care. This report focuses on adoption of innovative medical technologies by managed care organizations (MCOs). The project had two primary objectives: (1) to understand current processes MCOs use for making coverage, medical-necessity, and payment decisions involving emerging medical technologies, and how device developers and manufacturers prepare for and participate in these processes; and (2) to identify ways that private, voluntary action by the managed-care and medical-device industries individually or jointly might improve for the benefit of society the processes by which new medical technologies are developed, evaluated, and adopted or rejected for coverage.

Offers health care professionals vital information about risks, benefits, and costs of new medical technologies to help them make informed decisions

What information and decision-making processes determine how and whether an experimental medical technology becomes accepted and used? Adopting New Medical Technology reviews the strengths and weaknesses of present coverage and adoption practices, highlights opportunities for improving both the decision-making processes and the underlying information base, and considers approaches to instituting a much-needed increase in financial support for evaluative research. Essays explore the nature of technological change; the use of technology assessment in decisions by health care providers and federal, for-profit, and not-for-profit payers; the role of the courts in determining benefits coverage; strengthening the connections between evaluative research and coverage decision-making; manufacturers' responses to the increased demand for outcomes research; and the implications of health care reform for technology policy.

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The U.S. health care system is in a state of flux, and changes currently under way seem capable of exerting sizable effects on medical innovation. This volume explores how the rapid transition to managed care might affect the rate and direction of medical innovation. The experience with technological change in medicine in other nations whose health care systems have "single-payer" characteristics is thoroughly examined. Technology and Health Care in an Era of Limits examines how financing and care delivery strategies affect the decisions made by hospital administrators and physicians to adopt medical technologies. It also considers the patient's stake in the changing health care economy and the need for a stronger independent contribution of patients to the choice of technology used in their care. Finally, the volume explores the impact of changes in the demand for medical technology in pharmaceutical, medical device, and surgical procedure innovation.