Forecasting the future of medical technology: Implications for health policy

Abstract

Several years ago the State Secretary of Health of the Netherlands government decided to establish the Steering Group for Future Scenarios for Health Care, better known as STG. The STG was set up as an independent advisory body to the government. Its mission is to develop scenarios for what the future might have in stock for health care. To date scenarios have been published for developments in incidence, prevention and treatment of cardiovascular diseases and cancer and for the ageing of the population. A number of scenario studies, on a variety of topics, are in progress. In 1985 the STG started a project on ‘future health care technologies’, in collaboration with WHO Europe. Dr. David Banta, formerly with the Office of Technology Assessment in the U.S.A., was asked to head the project. He was assisted by a small team and by an international commitee of experts from various fields of medical research. The results of the project, which will be published in full detail, were presented in Rotterdam on May 19, 1987. The international audience was an interesting mix of people. There were quite a number of policy makers, most of them interested in the potential of forecasting the future as a new tool for planning and other aspects of policy. There were scientists, whose brains had been picked and who were curious to know what had been done and would be done with the facts and fictions provided. And there were people active in the field of ‘technology assessment’, eager to bridge the gap between the first two groups. Banta’s team has done an excellent job in a very short time. They asked a score of experts all over the world for their expectations about the development of new medical technologies. The result of this painstaking effort is a list of hundreds and