Against the background of a wave of new health care innovation and a growing demand for health care coupled with continuing concerns about escalating health care costs, the National Academies' Board on Science, Technology, and Economic Policy and the Board on Health Care Services initiated a project to identify the public policies needed to stimulate the development, adoption, and diffusion of high-value medical innovation.

As a first step a conference on “Medical Innovation in the Changing Healthcare Marketplace” was convened June 14–15, 2001 in Washington, D.C.  This report is a summary of that conference.