These days the medical device community routinely includes economic endpoints in foundational clinical trials and developing marketing materials that speak specifically to the cost savings of a device. However, we rarely see medical devices explicitly taking health care economics into consideration in the creation of user needs and the ultimate design of the device. Designing with health care economics in mind does not necessarily mean removing features and making a device at a lesser price. Rather, there are a few rules of thumb that you can keep in mind.

When it comes to product development, it’s a common misconception that industrial design takes place after the engineering is complete and before the product reaches the user—those final touches that apply colors, logos, and styling to the product. The reality—especially for medical device development—is that industrial design goes far beyond last-minute aesthetics. It explores deep-seated and often unmet user needs, delivering improved form and functionality, and influencing the entire development process from start to market adoption.

New surgical modalities, differentiated visualization and navigation solutions, along with increased connectivity continue to drive market adoption and increased utilization of Robotic-Assisted Surgery. As the market matures, access to a broad catalogue of Laparoscopic surgical tools will be one of the differentiating factors when hospital buyers evaluate the purchase of a new platform. It is important to explore the many considerations when developing or adapting an existing toolset for robotic applications.

With a push to lower the commercial price tags of new drugs – and find ways to get them to market sooner – pharmaceutical companies and regulatory bodies are increasingly more open to new clinical trial methodologies and tools. In parallel, during the current COVID-19 pandemic, the pharmaceutical industry is further forced to shift away from traditional clinical trial modalities with a bricks-and-mortar approach to a more patient-centric approach, where the trial comes to the patients in the form of digital enablement. Now is the time for innovation in clinical trials.

Prior to 2020, our world was already on a clear path toward increased connectivity in healthcare, as the near ubiquity of the internet paired with novel technologies allowed patients to self-educate, self-advocate, and self-care more easily than ever before. Yet as with any change, the affordances technology provided were met with skepticism. Then, of course, Sars-CoV-2 made its way across the globe, and our hesitance to adapt was steamrolled by the reality that adaptation had become a necessity, leaving us with challenges and opportunities.

In the war against COVID-19, our RADARs are diagnostics technologies that have taken first-page place in daily news: how many tests per day, turnaround time, rapid tests vs. central lab tests, and even the possibility of testing at airports or sport events. The powerful core of molecular diagnostics, a set of tools that reads the genetic material of the target pathogen, provides a mighty RADAR to healthcare providers across the world.

Mike Neidert and Mark Stevenson, two of Ximedica's development leaders, recently sat down with David Knapp of Boston Scientific to talk about Medtech innovation and trends, and on the effects of COVID-19. Read the blog, part of our Medical Alley partnership.

If software ate the world in the 2000s, 2020 was the dessert course.

By now we have all witnessed the novel Coronavirus shifting the playing field universally in favor of the digital native companies, whose business models leveraged scalability and flexibility. Functions and processes of historical norms with little ability to adapt were quickly discarded by enterprises looking to salvage cash flow. In particular, the overnight digital pivot for the sales professional was dramatic, challenging, and to the winners, delivered outsized and lasting rewards.