CBME Research
Problem statement of the Center for Biomedical Engineering
Health care is the single largest segment of the United States economy total, totalling more than $1.7 trillion in expenditures. As a percentage of the U.S. gross domestic product, health care has grown from 5.1% in 1960 to 15.3% in 2003. This percentage continues to grow. At the same time, employer-sponsored health insurance has been declining. In the period between 2001 and 2003, there was a 4% decrease in the percentage of the population under the age of 65 with health insurance obtained through the workplace, from 67% to 63%. For the State of New Mexico as a whole, 1 in 5 have no health insurance whatsoever. Nationally, 30% of the poor and near poor are without insurance. Nationally, more than 30% of all adults between the ages of 18 and 24 lack insurance. Native Americans and Hispanics constitute more than 50% of the population of New Mexico; of these groups, fully 35% are without insurance.
So, while the cost of health care continues to soar in America, more and more people live without health insurance. The poor are least able to afford traditional health care, hence they now rely largely upon:
- affordable health aids purchased over the counter at drug stores,
- indigent care at emergency rooms, and
- deferment of health care.
No society can long defer the health care of a segment its population without eventually paying a steep price in remedial care. At the same time, no society can afford to devote a large and growing percentage of its GDP to health care without eventually compromising the vitality its own economy. In both cases, affordable health care is the essential solution to the problem.
Research vision of the Center for Biomedical Engineering
The research vision of the Center for Biomedical Engineering is to:
- deliver affordable bioanalysis tools which stem the ever-increasing cost of our nation’s health care, and
- put in the hands of those outside of the health insurance system affordable, user-friendly, over-the-counter biotools which allow them to better manage their own health care.