The slow adoption of computerized physician order entry (CPOE) prompted
futurist Robert Mittman to ponder the question of technology hype. One heuristic
he lives by is that we tend to overestimate the impact of innovation in the
short run and to underestimate it in the long run. He also recommends Everett M.
Rogers’ classic Diffusion of Innovations theory, which holds that
innovations tend to diffuse more rapidly to the extent they confer some
measurable relative advantage over the incumbent technologies and are compatible
with existing infrastructures, business practices, and social environments.

For example: While the advantage of CPOE for the healthcare system is clear,
its advantage to physicians is not. Therefore, to the extent physicians rather
than the healthcare system decide on adoption of CPOE, it will diffuse that much
more slowly. For another: An electronic medical record system that throws out
existing record-keeping systems is harder to diffuse than one that leverages
them. Mittman exhorts us to be neither seduced nor repulsed by hype; but
instead, to examine a new technology in light of Rogers’ lessons before deciding
whether to adopt it, reject it, or make changes to it.

Reference: Mittman, Robert (2004). “The
Diffusion Of New Technologies: Why Do We Always Fall for the Hype?”
iHealthbeat, March 19 (registration required.)

Prediction and Planning at GE

As many American corporations struggle to stay abreast of the short-term,
General Electric maintains long-range research as a priority, raising its Global
Research Center budget again this year, to US$359 million. And that’s just a
fraction of its $2.7 billion total research and development spending in 2003 in
its research centers there and in India, China, and Germany. Much of the money
goes to molecular medicine, photonics, advanced propulsion, renewable energy,
and other “disruptive” technologies, reports Robert Weisman in the Boston
Globe.

GE looks forward from three to 15 years. “You’ve got to invest in technology
that’s going to fundamentally change things five years out or seven years out,
or you get one-upped,” GE’s senior vice president for research told Weisman.

Reference: Weisman, Robert (2004). “GE’s
sandbox for scientists.” Boston Globe, March 15