The NIH Consensus Development Program

Abstract

TEN years ago, in September 1977, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) launched its Consensus Development Program by convening a conference on screening for breast cancer.¹ This effort initiated a decade of increasing interest in technology assessment in health care, not only in this country but also abroad.In the mid 1970s, there was mounting concern in Congress over extraordinary increases in national health care expenditures. There was a general perception that these increases were at least partly due to the premature application of expensive technical innovations in medicine before their safety, efficacy, and costs had been adequately evaluated. Several . . .