New medical technologies are a leading driver of U.S. health care spending. This report identifies promising policy options to change which medical technologies are created, with two related policy goals: (1) Reduce total health care spending with the smallest possible loss of health benefits, and (2) ensure that new medical products that increase spending are accompanied by health benefits that are worth the spending increases.

New medical technologies are a leading driver of U.S. health care spending. This report identifies promising policy options to change which medical technologies are created, with two related policy goals: (1) Reduce total health care spending with the smallest possible loss of health benefits, and (2) ensure that new medical products that increase spending are accompanied by health benefits that are worth the spending increases.

An engaging account of innovation in healthcare and why the results fall short for patients and society. The evolution of the cell phones we carry in our pockets demonstrates that quality can increase while prices fall. Why doesn't healthcare also get better and cheaper? In Why Not Better and Cheaper?, James B. Rebitzer and Robert S. Rebitzer offer an answer to this question. Bringing together research on incentives, social norms, and market competition, they argue that the healthcare system generates the wrong kinds of innovation. It is too easy to profit from low-value innovations and too hard to profit from innovations that reduce the costs of care. The result is a healthcare system that is profusely innovative yet remarkably ineffective in discovering ways to deliver increased value at lower cost. Why Not Better and Cheaper? sheds new light on the trajectory of innovation in healthcare, and how to point innovation in a better direction.

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.

In "The Future of Healthcare: Innovations and Challenges Ahead," Carmen Wilde offers a compelling examination of the future landscape of healthcare in the United States. While many studies highlight the technological advancements poised to revolutionize medicine, Wilde takes a contrarian stance, arguing that the healthcare industry's structure significantly limits the realization of these innovations. By analyzing the incentives and operational frameworks within US healthcare, Wilde provides a thought-provoking perspective on why dramatic changes may not materialize as expected. This book does not delve into the merits or demerits of healthcare as a public good but instead focuses on the industry itself, particularly the delivery system. With rigorous analysis and insightful commentary, "The Future of Healthcare" challenges readers to rethink the future of medical innovation and the forces shaping it.

Rethinking Health Care explains that the context for the reorganization of U.S. health care over the last several decades has been set by broader developments in the national and international political economies and shows how these health care developments have, in turn, affected the larger social and economic transformations that were occurring.

Dr. Richard L. Reece's Innovation-Driven Health Care: 36 Key Concepts for Transformation offers an accessible and compelling, in-depth look at important innovative trends in the healthcare industry. Written for practicing physicians, hospital-physician joint venturers, corporation benefit officers, health plan executives, healthcare reformers, and leaders of the consumer movement, this unique text is a must-have resource featuring six sections on small practice innovations, large group practice innovations, hospital/physician relationship innovations, employer/health plan innovations, cost constraints/reform innovations, and consumer-driven innovations. Each chapter includes clear descriptions and examples of the moving forces behind medical innovation and the state of the industry from the physician's and consumer's perspective, with comprehensive cases studies from leaders in the healthcare industry, illustrating practical use and implementation of each trend.

This book provides an extensive review of what innovation means in healthcare, with real-life examples and guidance on how to successfully innovate with IT in healthcare.

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.