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Imaging Technologies

Iconoclasts Among the Images

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 March 2009

W. Peter Cockshott
Affiliation:
McMaster University Medical Centre
P. E. S. Palmer
Affiliation:
University of California, Davis

Abstract

High technology developments in diagnostic imaging raise a number of issues that are disturbing. New developments do not always favor greater diagnostic efficacy since fads, marketing promotion, and entrepreneurs can distort medical goals. New advances disseminate rapidly in affluent societies before formal benefit evaluations are completed. We suggest that digitization of radiography must be critically assessed, and simplicity of equipment design should be promoted. Though medical and economic factors can provide guidelines for policy making, the ultimate priority decisions are political in nature.

Type
Special Section: The Organization and Use of Technology in the Hospital Part II: Case Studies
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1987

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