The two-edged sword: how technology shapes medical practice.
Technology is assuming an increasingly important role in medical practice and health care delivery, fueled by forces such as uncertainty, variability, error, and quality problems. While the benefits of technology are obvious, there are insidious costs that are harder to discern. Technology has a significant, but less appreciated, role in imposing standards and constraints upon medicine. These ancillary effects account for some of the physician reluctance to embrace technological innovations perceived as controlling. This article explores technology's wide-ranging effects in shaping medical care delivery. Technology is not a passive servant of the health care delivery system, but rather acts as a catalyst and shaper of that system. In the process of becoming more technological, medicine has been transformed from a profession with unmatched sovereignty into an industry shaped by technology amidst a context of social and political forces.
Patton
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Department of Radiation Oncology, University of Utah Health Sciences Center  Salt Lake City, USA. gregory.patton@hsc.utah.edu
D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001292:Attitude to Computers; D003657:Decision Making; D006801:Humans; D007256:Information Systems / Q000458:organization & administration*; D008490:Medical Informatics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D010820:Physicians / Q000523:psychology; D017410:Practice Guidelines as Topic; D011216:Practice Management, Medical / Q000458:organization & administration*; D011787:Quality of Health Care; D013672:Technology / Q000458:organization & administration* / Q000639:trends; D014481:United States