In the recent past the interests of different groups concerned with health care have focused on the use of medical technologies—their impacts on safety, efficacy, and effectiveness; cost-effectiveness and cost-benefit; quality; and their social, legal, and ethical implications. The sum of these varied interests is the field of health care technology assessment. The Council on Health Care Technology was created to promote the development and application of technology assessment in health care and the review of health care technologies for their appropriate use. The council was established as a public-private enterprise at the Institute of Medicine, a component of the National Academy of Sciences, through the Health Promotion and Disease.
