NEW IMAGING TECHNOLOGY AND COST-CONTAINMENT

New diagnostic imaging technologies have borne unusual scrutiny in con siderations of health care cost containment. This scrutiny derives fro m a history of relatively poor technology assessment, questions about the extent to which technologic innovations promulgate improvements in patients' health, and observations that economic concerns often take precedence over medical ones in technology acquisition decisions. Curr ent and future legislative and market-driven health care reform initia tives will require providers thinking of acquiring new imaging technol ogies to assess their costs and benefits more rigorously.