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It is a mistake to focus on health care elated technological developments that help us manufacture better equipment and machinery for diagnosis. The combination of a computer, scanner, printer, and a web camera can help an individual doctor set up a mobile diagnostic center without any difficulty.

Reports from different labs can be scanned and mailed to the doctor. The doctor can go through the same in his or her computer. A hardcopy can be prepared for filing purposes with the help of the printer. The diagnosis of the doctors can be conveyed in the form of a scanned prescription or a conversation over the web camera. A doctor can interact with hundreds and thousands of patients using this technique.

What is more, diagnosis will become faster as the doctor can rely on the services of any nurse situated close by. Instead of traveling a long distance to meet a very efficient doctor, one can contact a registered medical practitioner and get basic diagnosis done. The fact that the doctor can observe the patient through the web camera and receive the reports and preliminary diagnosis will simplify the process.

This will also reduce costs of health care because the doctor can operate out of his or her house. Infrastructure and establishment costs will automatically come down and various other expenses related to the process can be reduced. Certain safeguards can be implemented to ensure that the diagnosis is done properly. The record of the convention will be sufficient proof of the nature of diagnosis made by the doctor. When viewed from this perspective, there is no doubt that technology has a positive effect on health care.

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The controversy over rising health care costs and the role of technology in causing the same have become a topic of a heated debate. Those who criticize expensive health care point out development in technology invariably cut cost in other areas. However, health care is one area where introduction of new technology results in an increase in cost of medical treatment. This, according to such experts, is a clear case of profit mongering by hospitals and medical institutions.

Those who oppose such an idea point out that widespread acceptance and mass production result in cost reduction. Whether a new technology has been introduced or not is not relevant at all. New technologies to find tumors will become less expensive when the number of persons suffering from such tumors increases. Since the number of persons suspected of suffering from this problem and actually facing this problem remains low, it is not surprising that overall cost of medical treatment using new technology remains high.

Another important factor that is often ignored is the role of research and associated costs in development of new technology. Whether cell phones are harmful for the human body is being discussed more than ten years after cell phones were introduced in a major way.

However, each and every new drug or machine related to health care must pass stringent tests before it is introduced in even a single institution. This is, according to experts, the primary reason why medical care remains so expensive despite introduction of new and improved technological solutions.