I’m doing some prospecting in the medical markets. Does anybody have any journal or research resource suggestions that shape current design narratives in the surgical device sector?
Thanks…
DB
Design narratives? No, you won’t find any published.
I’m happy to give you players in the field, but “surgical device sector” is quite broad. The usual suspects of Smith & Nephew, J&J and Stryker come to mind, but could you narrow your search a bit? OR equipment, robotics, trauma, ortho, implants, endo, neuro, spine??? The list goes on …
Thanks iab…
What I’m looking for is med/tech news industry aggregators like MassDevice.com and medicaldesignandoutsourcing.com (hence “narratives”). I’m interested in the spaces between investment and the manufacture and regulation of medical devices of all kinds. Those companies who are at the forefront of integrating technology that lead to successful outcomes and return on investment are where my entry point is for this design research.
Any additional resource links that are tangent to this ontology are appreciated.
Cheers!
I don’t spend any time in trade magazines, but one you don’t have listed is MDDI - https://www.mddionline.com/
If you are looking for ROI on outcomes, your best source is going to a professional society conference/congress and search the posters presented there. You will get a lot of who is doing what to solve problems in the space. Next step up will be in the clinical papers in the associated professional society literature - peer-reviewed stuff. Those are few and far between and by the time those are published, it is old news. Your best bet are the posters at the conference/congress.
But when you are looking at posters, you have to sort through those too. If a company gives the author product to use in their study, it has to be disclosed. Many times authors don’t like that because of the perception of bias. If that is indeed the case and the author purchases the device for their study, rarely does the author submit the company name in their poster/paper. You won’t know what product assisted in creating the outcome.
Again, narrowing your space will be to your advantage. There are dozens if not hundreds of conferences/congresses worldwide. Attending any one will be 4 figures. Unless you have a huge budget, i would recommend looking in a specific area.
One other thing, your best place to see vendors trying to sell their products that is not a conference/congress is a trade show called Medica in Dusseldorf in November. Wear comfortable shoes and expect a few days if you want to see everything. It makes CES seem tiny in comparison. Also, if you book your hotel 8 weeks out, expect to pay $600/night for a dump.
Thanks iab…
I guess there is room for improvement in the process of disclosing all involved parties during a study.
I’ve narrowed it to endo, ortho and imaging design problems for now. Implants are also interesting as a natural extension of these areas.
I did an endo project in school. I probably saw a couple dozen gall bladders removed, cool stuff. I’ll date myself now, it was much easier to do that before HIPAA. I’m sure there is a way for students to do it today, but all I did was talk to a charge nurse and they lead me in. After the first one I was everyone’s pal.
I would also recommend going to a manufacturer’s site. If their product was a part of an outcome study, whether disclosed or not, they should be pointing to the study at the very least.
One last thing, with surgery, pretty much the only place a hospital makes money, the most important metric is throughput. I believe the estimate for value to a single operating room is $100-$150/minute. Yes, per minute, that is not a mistake. Anything you can do to reduce time and they can crank more surgeries will make you the hero.