The High Cost of Medical Equipment: A Burden for Patients and Healthcare Systems
"Computers make things better and cheaper. In healthcare, new technology make things better and more expensive” Jonathan Gruber, MIT economist.
In 1965, Gordon Moore- co founder of Intel observed that computers, machines that run on computers and computer power all become smaller, faster and cheaper as transmitters on integrated circuits become more efficient. This observation became known as Moore's law and has been a guiding principle of development in the technology world. Iphone today packs more power than room full of circuits in 1970. In space technology, satellites are getting smaller due to advances in technology but the ability to perform same function to bigger ones is growing faster. The Apollo 11 moon lander had less computing power than Iphone XS. Iphone has million times memory! The smaller and faster computers improve transportation, education energy production etc. For well over 50 years, this has been the case in almost all sectors of society except one: Healthcare
The prices of medical equipment such as ultrasound were supposed to be dropping every two years but that is not the case. Even government with its buying power is unable to induce price reduction.??Prices are going up. But why? Few factors for this failures have been cited including;
Moore’s law have two pillars; increase in computing power and the corresponding decrease in cost. However in health care we see the opposite: Prices are going up as the computing power increase. We are witnessing what venture capitalist Peter Thiel once cynically called Eroom's law, Moore’s law in reverse. Optimism is fading. Medicine is so far behind from other industries some practices feel like they were transported from the 1990’s. “We are at version 1.0 of health technology”.?
According to some studies, the price of ultrasound went up to 20% on average last year and the trend is expected to continue. The price increase follow the trend of what is known as "medical inflation"-a higher than normal price increases healthcare.? There are alternatives though. Asian produced medical equipment have improved in quality and are still affordable.?