Support surfaces--a technology review

Technology assessment performed on the wide range of clinical support systems available highlights the potential difficulties encountered when already utilized clinical therapies become subject to careful scientific scrutiny. The technology assessment committee must look beyond tacitly accepted indications for technology use and instead focus their evaluations on current, published clinical outcomes research. Where this latter clinical research is lacking, the technology assessment committee's goal is to balance the best available evidence of clinical safety and efficacy of a technology against the relative costs of that therapy.