Biomedical Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
health-care insurances through which they can strengthen their competitive
advantage within the health-care insurance market to attract more clients.
Finally, early cooperation can then be effective in highlighting the incentives
for the adoption of technologies, and the added value in clinical processes
becomes clearer to the professional users. In this manner, specific user values
can also be considered in the design process of new applications of BAN.
The involvement of medical education institutions can also be valuable
in terms of early cooperation in protocol development and standardization
processes that are imperative to the social embedding of technologies in the
clinical setting. Thus, a choice has to be made by the actors involved in devel-
opment processes of BAN applications: wait until development has reached
a state of maturation and then try to link up with interested techno-savvy
medical professionals and provide shattered courses (relying on profession-
als to link up with the promises in later stages of development), or to engage
in early cooperation with basic and specialized medical education institutes,
and instead of offering shattered educational programs, establish a con-
certed effort to integrate these developments in medical education, and also
collaborate in research to highlight key issues for the professionals.
12.4 Conclusion
In this chapter, we have taken up the challenge of anticipating on broader
aspects that are relevant for the social embedment of the BAN concept in
the health-care sector of the Netherlands. We have presented our analysis of
possible social, ethical, and legal impacts of BAN applications on the basis of
literature research and interviews with relevant actors along the value chain.
This has further enabled us to draw on various social, political, and ethical
implications, which might affect alignments at different levels.
The main message this chapter conveys is that early consideration of vari-
ous social, ethical, and legal issues is imperative to the quality of the inno-
vation process and social embedding of its eventual products in a specific
context. What happens usually is that, on the one hand, scientists continu-
ously develop new knowledge and resources. In the early stages, expecta-
tions clearly present the value of technologies under development. Promises
and expectations become inflated to attract attention (Figure 12.3). On the
other hand, firms, industrial actors, and policy makers are confronted by
promises (sometimes this results in excitement but often also in concerns)
and have to decide what to do about them (Figure 12.3). Quality control of
expectations is crucial here because misjudging expectations might have
great implications later in the innovation process.
This is because actors, in reaching their endeavors, tend to project linear
maps of the future and often in the enthusiasm about the new idea they
