The evolution of clinical technologies presents potential adopters with
considerations in planning for clinical program development that include the
stage and the rate of a technology's evolution. This paper presents a
conceptual framework for these considerations and applies the framework to
orthopedic technologies. Eight orthopedic surgeons were asked to assess 14
orthopedic technologies and position each of them along a spectrum of
research, clinical, and adopted technologies. The distribution of responses
for each technology–year combination is presented, and estimates of
central tendency, dispersion, and variances provide measures of the change in
the distribution of responses over time for each technology and the change in
the degree of rater consensus over time for each technology. While orthopedic
trauma was chosen to illustrate the technology spectrum model, the model and
assessment methodology is applicable to other medical specialties as well.
Adoption of this framework in a hospital setting should enable more systematic
and effective clinical program development.
