A Government move to regulate the importation of expensive new healthcare gadgetry to the Island has been welcomed as a step toward reducing Bermuda’s escalating healthcare costs.

The latest Throne Speech declared upcoming changes to the law would introduce controls on medical technology that has “contributed significantly” to rising costs.

Unnecessary and expensive diagnostic testing has come under fire for fuelling the Island’s rampant growth in expenditure.

“The Health Technology Reviews have been developed as part of the wider discussion on healthcare costs,” said Bermuda Health Council (BHeC) CEO Jennifer Attride-Stirling. “This particular initiative will introduce controls over what technology is allowed to come into our health system and what is not.”

She added: “Bear in mind, the issue of appropriate capacity levels is not something particular to Bermuda — we are special in a lot of ways but not necessarily in this.

“It’s a worldwide pattern. When you have a lot of medical technology in the system, it’s going to get used. Who would invest in equipment and have it sit idly by and not generate a return on that investment?”

Rather than lowering costs through increased competition, Dr Attride-Stirling said greater availability in healthcare inevitably translated into “increasing utilisation — and, therefore, increasing costs”.

“The per unit costs may vary with competition, but the amount used increases and the system as a whole spends more on healthcare,” she said.

Changes to the law won’t cut down on overuse, Dr Attride-Stirling added — but will introduce limits when the Island’s technological capacity becomes too great.

“In Bermuda, we have this issue, alongside other small island states: we are in the middle of the ocean and we’re isolated, and this can create diseconomies of scale.

“Our level of need is not going to vary much year on year, but what happens if equipment fails? We have to have some level of redundancy when it comes to some medical equipment.

“But in this context, we have to be especially mindful in how we manage our capacity. Anywhere in the world where you have excess capacity, it will be used. And as my friend and colleague Marc Roberts of the Harvard School of Public Health says, the only thing worse than unused, unnecessary capacity, is used, unnecessary capacity.”

Residents and their insurers won’t see a quick drop in medical costs once the changes go into effect, Dr Attride-Stirling pointed out.

“It’s not an initiative that can reduce existing capacity — what’s here is here, and addressing its utilisation requires other measures,” she said.

“What this will do is control what comes in from the time the legislation goes through. After that point, equipment will have to go through this review process, to make an assessment about whether the health system needs that extra capacity.”