Present and future electronic requirements for medicine

In the past, medical interest in electronics was almost exclusively restricted to researchers. Moreover, the electronics industry commonly found that successful developments stimulated by the interest of one physician frequently held little interest for other physicians. However, recent, dramatic and now firmly entrenched therapeutic successes of extracorporeal heart-lung and artificial kidney machines have brought to the general medical community an awareness and acceptance of the usefulness of engineered devices to the practice of medicine. Simple electronic devices have now begun to successfully compete with and replace traditional pharmacological therapeutic agents of the physicians and conventional scalpel blades of the surgeons. That such activity is only now in its beginnings is largely attributable to the dearth of significant engineering resources previously directed toward appropriate medical developments. The great bulk of electronic diagnostic and therapeutic instrunments and devices that medicine requires have yet to appear. Many of these developments await the appearance of suitable special purpose components and materials. Medical care is a big business (over $36 billion in 1965). The expanding population, its progressively aging character and the emergence of adequate medical care as a human right to be guaranteed by government, make it a true growth industry, relatively independent of the exigencies of economic cycles and political affairs. The Technical requirements and economics of instruments and devices which the medical community requires will be discussed. The role and significance of government activity in this field will be assessed.