Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-fscjk Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T06:18:04.720Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Early Warning in the Light of Theories of Technological Change

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

Stuart Blume
Stuart Blume
Affiliation:
University of Amsterdam
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Current interest in early warning can be understood as a natural response to the regularity with which health service planners have been overwhelmed by new technology. Planning the rational introduction of a new technology should be facilitated by advance warning of its imminent arrival on the market. Current approaches to early warning tend to rely on the insights and expectations of scientific and clinical experts in the field in question. In this paper it is argued that such an approach fails to recognize important changes that have occurred both in the innovation process itself, and in theoretical understanding of it. With the more complex roles that governments now play, and with the increasingly articulate demands of consumers, the innovation process has become more complex. At the same time, it is now clear that the innovation process embodies a multitude of choices. Approaches to early warning must be compatible with these new perspectives.

Keywords

Technology AssessmentTechnological ChangeConsumer Choice
Type
Special Section: Early Identification and Assessment of Emerging Health Technology
Information
International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care , Volume 14 , Issue 4 , Fall 1998 , pp. 613 - 623
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1998

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1.Banerji, D.Hidden menace of the universal child immunization program. International Journal of Health Services, 1988, 18, 293–99.Google Scholar
2.Banta, H. D., Oortwijn, W. J., & van Beekum, W. T.The organization of health care technology assessment in the Netherlands. The Hague: Rathenau Institute, 1995.Google Scholar
3.Bijker, W. E., Hughes, T. P., & Pinch, T. J. (eds.). The social construction of technological systems. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1987.Google Scholar
4.Bloom, B. R.Vaccines for the Third World. Nature, 1989, 342, 115–20.Google Scholar
5.Blume, S. S.Insight and industry: The dynamics of technological change in medicine. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1992.Google Scholar
6.Blume, S. S.Social process and the assessment of a new imaging technique. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 1993, 9, 335–45.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
7.Blume, S. S.The rhetoric and counter rhetoric of a ‘bionic’ technology. Science Technology and Human Values, 1997, 22, 31–56.Google Scholar
8.Bos, M. Health care technology in the Netherlands. In Banta, H. D., Battista, R. N., Gelband, H., and Jonsson, E. (eds.), Health care technology and its assessment in eight countries. Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995, 171–208.Google Scholar
9.CCNE. Comité Consultatief National d'Ethique pour les Sciences de la Vie et de la Santé Avis sur l'implant cochleaire chez l'enfant sourd prélingual. Paris: CCNE, 1994.Google Scholar
10.Comroe, J. H., & Dripps, R. D. Scientific basis for the support of biomedical science. In Roberts, E. B., Levy, R. I., Finkelstein, S. N., Moskowitz, J., & Sondik, E. J. (eds.), Biomedical innovation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1981.Google Scholar
11.Epstein, S.Impure science: AIDS, activism, and the politics of knowledge. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1996.Google Scholar
12.Fox, R. C., & Swazey, J. P.Spare parts: Organ replacement in American society. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.Google Scholar
13.Hillman, B. J.Medical imaging in the 21st century. Lancet, 1997, 350, 731–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
14.Kaplan, B.The computer prescription: Medical computing, public policy, and views of history. Science Technology and Human Values, 1995, 20, 5–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
15.Kleinman, A.The illness narratives. New York: Basic Books, 1988.Google Scholar
16.Lane, H.The mask of benevolence: Disabling the deaf community in America. New York: Knopf, 1993.Google Scholar
17.Lehoux, P., & Blume, S.Sociopolitical dimensions of medical technology assessment. Paper presented at ISTAHC Conference, Barcelona, 1997.Google Scholar
18.McKinlay, J. B.From ‘promising report’ to ‘standard procedure’: Seven stages in the career of a medical innovation. Millbank Memorial Fund Quarterly, 1981, 59, 233–70.Google ScholarPubMed
19.Peyrot, M., McMurry, J. F., & Hedges, R. Living with diabetes: The role of personal and professional knowledge in symptom and regime management. In Roth, J. and Conrad, P. (eds.), Research in the sociology of health care: The experience and management of chroniillness. London: JAI Press, 1987.Google Scholar
20.Reiser, S. J.Consumer competence and the reform of American health care. JAMA, 1992, 267, 1511–15.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
21.Reiser, S. J.The era of the patient. JAMA, 1993, 269, 1012–17.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
22.Rooseboom, M.Besluitsvorming rond het gebruik van vaccins in het Nederlandse vaccina tieprogramma. MSc dissertation. Amsterdam: Department of Science Dynamics, 1997.Google Scholar
23.Spetz, J. Physicians and physicists: The interdisciplinary introduction of the laser to medicine. In Rosenberg, N., Gelijns, A. C., & Dawkins, H. (eds.), Sources of medical technology. Washington, DC: NAS Press, 1995, 41–66.Google Scholar
24.Stanton, J. What shapes vaccine policy? The case of hepatitis B in the UK. Social History of Medicine, 1994.Google Scholar
25.Stevens, A., Gabbay, J., & Robert, G.Identifying new health technologies in the United Kingdom. International Journal of Technology Assessment in Health Care, 1996, 13, 59–67.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
26.van Well, M. Over Actoren, Technologieën en Besluitsvorming. (MSc thesis). University of Amsterdam, 1996.Google Scholar
27.Winner, L. Do artifacts have politics? Daedelus, 1980, 121–36.Google Scholar