Patient, Print Thyself

[Valin]

Via Meadia:

Feb. 19 2015

 

Do-it-yourself 3-D printing is good for more than a hobby: it can also allow ordinary Americans to get medical supplies and devices at low prices. The New York Times reports on the increasing popularity of 3-D printed prosthetic limbs for children. With one in every 1,000 children born with missing fingers (post-birth accidents only augment those numbers), there’s a big demand for prosthetics, but traditional ways of getting one are expensive:

 

(Snip)

 

This story is only a taste of what 3-D printing and other technologies could do to make health care cheaper and more efficient. 3-D printing will disrupt existing supply medical supply changes, cutting down on the power of big medical institutions and their middlemen to jack up prices. Procedures or medical products that once cost thousands of dollars will cost less than a hundred. In the grand scheme of U.S. health care spending, of course, a price reduction like that may not seem like a lot. But for a middle class family with a tight budget and a high-deductible plan or other kinds of cost-sharing requirements, it could make a really important difference.

 

When you pair that kind of cheap technology with, for example, systems that monitor costly chronic conditions more efficiently, we are talking about noticeably lower costs for quite a number of people.

 

 

 

 

 

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