Why Is Data Quality Key To Today?s Medical Device Industry Trends?

Quality Data Key To Today?s Medical Device Industry Trends.

quality-hospital-analytics | Photo Courtesy of johnfranciesim http://www.flickr.com/photos/81168466@N07/8230679458/sizes/q/Medtronic always has been at the forefront of?medical device industry trends. In a recent interview on MassDevice.com, Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak explains the need that a lot of life sciences companies have to prove the overall economic value of their technologies.One of today?s most challenging medical device industry trends is that medical device innovation must demonstrate economic value.?In fact, lowering costs is now mandated with the recent health care law changes.??Economic value, in simple terms, is projecting our value proposition in financial terms for our customers, not only the clinical benefits, but the financial benefits,? Ishrak says. This kind of thinking, he adds, is transforming Medtronic?s strategic priorities for the coming years.But health care?s very nature makes it difficult for companies to present medical devices not as a cost, but as an investment. ?The cost of healthcare is incurred during a procedure,? Ishrak notes, but ?the benefit of that investment, if you like, is realized at later time and potentially in a different place.? In this context, it?s difficult for any medical device company to follow a patient?s outcome and the health care costs after a procedure has been done.

Medtronic and other companies can begin making the case for investment by partnering with hospitals and running pilot projects to focus on areas that reduce health care costs. The goal is to produce quality data that proves their technologies can reduce overall patient costs.

A CRM solution can help companies like Medtronic by providing ways to monitor these pilot programs and hospitals.?Greater visibility through real-time analytics is the key to identifying areas where costs need to be reduced and where cost reduction has been achieved.?They then can use that data to put together more qualitative analytics and even a case study to prove the overall effectiveness.

?Once those pilots are successful, we intend to scale them across those systems and eventually do even broader market expansion,? Ishrak tells MassDevice.com. Going forward, Medtronic will assess economic value before spending money on products, he adds, a new approach that will require changing ?the mindset and the thinking and the culture in the company.?

Source:?MassDevice.com, January 2013

Do Medical Device Technology Firms Need Supply Chain Transparency?

Medical Device Technology Firms Need Supply Chain Transparency.

improving-business-transparency | Photo Courtesy of Alex Segre http://www.flickr.com/photos/alexsegre/2863323135/sizes/q/In any company or industry, managing the supply chain and its product-related information is important to business success. For life sciences organizations, supply chain and risk management are especially crucial due to the industry?s intensifying cost, price and regulatory pressures.Medical device technology companies stand to gain significant benefits by creating end-to-end?supply chain visibility?such as cost savings and faster growth, according to an article on the Supply & Demand Chain Executive website.

But what exactly is ?medical supply chain visibility??

As a supply chain creates products, it simultaneously generates enormous amounts of information ? about materials and products, plus vendors and customers. At every turn, there?s also transaction information, including purchase orders and manufacturing orders, invoices and delivery notes. How should companies manage all of this complex data? What regulations must they meet along the way?

Organizations need an end-to-end solution to manage the entire supply chain and risk management process, including suppliers, relationship trends, governance and compliance. Achieving effective medical supply chain visibility starts with assessing a company?s current supply chain and pinpointing steps needed to help achieve full visibility. Then, companies can move on to implementation, improving the transparency in organizations and people, processes, data and technology.

This solution also must be able to integrate seamlessly with other data systems, take advantage of robust workflow capabilities and provide deep business intelligence that can improve operational efficiency.?It?s important to integrate a number of product?data management systems, including a procedural process that ensures timely, accurate and consistent data classification.

This end-to-end solution offers potential benefits to medical device technology companies, the Supply & Demand Chain Executive article explains. Perhaps most significant to the safety-critical medical device industry, supply chain visibility also can help enhance patient safety and reduce regulatory compliance risks, thanks to comprehensive tracking and record-keeping.

Source:?Supply & Demand Chain Executive, January 2013

What Does Robotic Surgery Tell Us About Medical Device Innovation?

What Does Robotic Surgery Tell Us About Medical Device Innovation?

robotic-surgical-innovation | Photo Courtesy of -SHANE NOIR- http://www.flickr.com/photos/shane-noir/5985470715/sizes/q/Life sciences companies face increased pressures, both to demonstrate improved patient outcomes and to prove that their product or drug will reduce costs. A perfect example of how?medical device innovation?can reduce overall health care costs ? while winning over surgeons, patients and hospitals ? is?robotic surgery.The leading surgical robots cost up to $2.3 million, but hospitals consider them good investments. That?s because of the ways the machines lower ?the downstream costs? of surgeries, according to a recent article on the Fortune Magazine website.?Robotic surgical procedures typically result in less tissue damage than standard techniques, allowing patients to heal faster, which minimizes recovery time and hospital stays.?With the new health care law focusing on positive outcomes and lowering readmissions, this is one of the best benefits of robotic surgery.And the robots are very much in demand. Hospitals are finding that having robots pulls in more patients and can even result in an increased number of surgeries performed. While the market has grown significantly in recent years, this type of surgical procedure started off in urology about 10 years ago. Once the clinical benefits became clear, this method expanded into areas such as gastrointestinal and cardiovascular surgery.The most popular surgical robot today is the da Vinci, made by a growing Silicon Valley-based company called Intuitive Surgical. A well-designed, closed system of proprietary hardware and software, the Fortune Magazine article calls the da Vinci ?the iPhone of its category.? The machine is so intuitive, according to the article, that children with strong video gaming skills take to the new interface better than (at first) most surgeons.A contrasting design is the Raven, a smaller, experimental machine developed by engineering professors at two university robotics labs. With its lower price tag of $300,000 and open-source model, the article compares the Raven to Google?s Android platform phones. By opening this technology to anyone, the Raven could spur even more?medical device innovation?and further reduce health care costs.Source:?Fortune Magazine, January 2013