Biomedical engineering for "The Age of Health"

A systems approach to health care inevitably emphasizes shifting present emphasis from curative to preventive orientations. However, problems arise through the inertia and resistance of our politico-cultural system. The present highly-developed curative-oriented system depends heavily on technological and biomedial engineering expertise, as indeed will a preventive-oriented system. They must serve however within the priorities defined by the systems objectives in health care. This paper reviews, in terms of technological content and socio-political issues, some major developments including; multiphasic health testing and disease screening, health appraisals, clinical labs and other test procedures, protocols, computerized information systems, data bases and systems modelling.