Welfare Effects
Wakefield Radiology's investments in ICTs will have produced measurable increases in national GDP, as patients who value the higher quality and more timely services that the ICTs enable will be prepared to pay the additional costs to receive these services.
However, the benefits accruing to patients in respect of better treatment outcomes as a consequence of better or more timely diagnosis, whilst very real to the patient, are less likely to be captured in national statistics. Quite often, these benefits are unpriced (e.g. reduction in pain). Moreover, even when benefits are measurable (e.g. increased life expectancy), it may take a very long time for them to become evident even in health statistics. Whilst there is the potential for some data to be recorded (e.g. less time taken off work for diagnosis and treatment), these benefits accrue not to the measurements of the health sector, but to productivity measurements in the sectors in which the patient works. Thus, the benefits engendered by health sector investment in ICTs are actually attributed to other sectors. Nonetheless, when the benefits are measurable, they will be captured at the aggregate national level.
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