[Conditions for introduction and financing of new technologies]

Introduction and application of new technologies in the Dutch health care system will be less straightforward in the future than they were in the past. The pressure to contain health care expenditure has increased, also because of European agreements about adequate financing of collective spending. This will make initiators and producers of new technologies more critical towards technologies currently in development and urge them to specifically introduce technologies with a relatively favourable cost effectiveness profile. Whether new technologies will be used to a large extent will increasingly depend on the parties in health care at the regional and practice levels, who will assume a more important role in resource allocation in health care. On the other hand, they will be made more accountable for their decisions and will have to demonstrate their contribution to efficiency in health care.