Diffusion of New Technologies in the Treatment of the Medicare Population: Implications for Patient Access and Program Expenditures

This is the authors' abstract. We don't add key points for this paper.

Patterns of diffusion were analyzed for three pairs of technologies: one of each pair represents a very recent innovation, and the other is more established. Tremendous growth in utilization from 1985-89 was documented, primarily due to more patients obtaining access to the technologies. Nevertheless, disturbing differences in levels of use remain between black and white patients.