Assessing the social impacts of medical technologies.

The introduction of a new medical technology can have indirect, unintended, or unanticipated effects on individuals or on social systems. Although these impacts result from the widespread use of the technology, many of them can be predicted while the technology is being developed. A method for systematically identifying and evaluating these impacts is technology assessment. Such an assessment, made while a technology is being developed, could provide useful information for decision making about research and development and in planning for the technology's eventual introduction. Because only a few medical technologies have been formally assessed and because the process of medical technology development is porrly understood, one must be cautious in recommending widespread use of technology assessment. Nevertheless, enough is now known to permit the formulation of approaches that could be used in preliminary attempts at medical technology assessment.