This is an interesting analysis from BusinessWeek, and covers some areas perhaps not discussed enough, software and hardware. When you develop one side, the other side needs to improve as well. As mentioned, robotic surgery is the rage with consumers and it does have some real benefits as far as being able to work in smaller areas, possibly be used for a telemedicine procedure too, but the cost surgery is almost $8000.00 more with a da Vinci robot, not to mention the training a surgeon under goes. 
Somewhere along the line the inflation of health care has to be acknowledged. The drugs used for cancer and other disease treatment plans also drives up the cost. Health care technology is not cheap by any means and neither is the R and D, so finding the balance today is something that continues to perplex all. Today, rapid advancements towards cure and quality of life are emerging so quickly, it’s hard to calculate a return on investment as far as hospitals making large investments. With the da Vinci robot, will the hospital eventually be able to use the device for remote surgeries which would add additional money to the till? How soon before a new and updated model comes out, how long before it is outdated, and how about the software updates?
It all comes right back around to software and hardware, and R and D, something that is such a large moving target; nobody has been able to nail it down. BD
“Why do medical costs keep going up? Walk into the University of Maryland Medical Center for a heart bypass operation and you'll see one reason. Maryland is one of the few hospitals in the country to use a robot for heart surgery. The machine takes minimally invasive surgery to a new level, allowing the tiniest of incisions and enabling doctors to operate in extremely tight places. The robot is already a popular option for prostate surgery, and proponents praise its ability to trim patient recovery time by a third.”
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