Medical high-technology assessment and implementation in a community hospital: nuclear magnetic resonance

Health care administrators and physicians are under intense pressure from the government, industry, and the public at large to contain the escalating cost of health care. Operating margins of hospitals are averaging about 1%, and some hospitals are closing their doors. Health care providers are thus faced with the dilemma of how to bring costly high technology to a community hospital in a timely and effective manner without incurring serious financial setbacks. Despite all these pressures, we have presented several reasons why a community hospital should bring costly technology to its medical staff, and thus to its patients. We have described Kettering Medical Center's approach to this problem and our success in bringing it to the community early and cost-effectively, which has benefited the local community as well as the medical center. Our desire to be one of the "early adopters" may not work for everyone, since it requires extremely careful and perceptive evaluation of the technologic developments. It requires an intelligent, progressive, and committed board, administration, and medical staff, and it requires clever financing, such as large outside grants and help from a medical school. Such partnerships and research organizations, or liaisons with government agencies such as the Veterans Affairs system, are believed to be the keys in getting costly high technology into a community hospital. To achieve this, administration and key medical staff should constantly be on the lookout, evaluating high-technology developments. Once the hospital decides to get into a costly new high technology, it must seek alliances or partnerships with others. To identify, assess, and acquire new technology is an ongoing process.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)