What Will Make for Tomorrow’s Medical Device Winners - 3 Key Questions to Ask

By Bill Booth, Director of Business Development

There’s no argument that technology will continue to become a larger and larger part of our everyday lives. Just look at your personal electronics, car, home automation. Then look at today’s healthcare system. There is no doubt that these advances and our expectations of them will make their way into medical devices.

What will make for tomorrow’s successful medical devices? What will define the winners in the ever more competitive markets with ever more advancing technology and ecosystem expectations? Forward-thinking medical device firms are re-inventing themselves now by exploiting these changes to create new competitive advantage. These firms start by asking three important questions at the beginning of the product development process. In doing so, they to ensure your product not only creates advantage today, but also has staying power, and fits into the ever-evolving world of medical technology.

1) Does the product create clear clinical results?

Patient safety is, of course, first priority. Beyond that, the product must create clear, measurable, positive results in the clinic. To meet these criteria, a device must meet many standards, including – “Is it accurate?” “Is it reliable?” “Is it functional?” and more. And these standards must be clearly measurable and recognized as such by the medical community. Leading device companies are utilizing multi-disciplinary engineering approaches meet these demands. These factors are the key to its use, and ultimately valuation for start-ups, and market share as the product is rolled-out to the world.

2) Does the product provide tangible benefit the 5 P’s (Patient, Physician, Provider, Payer, and Pharmacy)?

The device must offer a product and solution that introduces a tangibly better experience for everyone involved in the device’s use, administration, and support. Often called “The 5 P’s” (Patient, Physician, Provider, Payer, and Pharmacy), each constituent must see an advantage for themselves and their operation. Surprises can abound here, as what’s often a big advantage for one group can be perceived as extra work or a disadvantage to others. Successful device firms devote substantial resources to looking at how the device and itand data are to be used by each constituent and the benefit to each.

3) How does the product fit into the ecosystem?

Tomorrow’s devices don’t work alone. Devices are used as part of a procedure protocol. And, critical for today’s and tomorrow’s devices, the device’s data is shared with other devices, analytic systems, systems of record, etc. To be successful, tomorrow’s devices must smoothly fit into their ecosystems, and as noted above, provide benefit to each constituent. Leading companies are more extensively utilizing user research, human factors are other techniques to ensure this critical fit.

We can all agree that tomorrow will be much different than today. And much better. We can also agree that the bar that separates winners and losers will continue to rise. Tomorrow’s leaders and winners will continue to use new techniques, new thinking, new technologies to their advantage.

The key to success – start today.