With technology becoming more integral to patient care in recent years, innovation in the medtech space is progressing at an unprecedented level. From streamlining long-held manual processes to creating entirely new diagnostic devices, new tech is cropping up all over the industry—resulting in a real-world impact on patients’ quality of life.
These technologies are helping companies to enable faster and more efficient engagement with patients, improve traditional devices, incorporate more software solutions into patient care, and even launch wholly new products. Further, these modern tools help medtech companies keep up with the rapid pace of innovation, by launching new products faster and quickly extending to new markets.
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Streamlining quality processes for the better
In medtech especially, quality is the name of the game. The speed at which companies can address post-market or field issues is vital to success. After all, if a product meant to improve patient care isn’t performing the way it’s intended to, there could be tangible life-saving implications.
The secret to speedy post-market action is automating and integrating what was once a manual and disparate case-to-complaint and reportability process, by using a single enterprise platform.
For instance, imagine a company that wants to decrease their issue-to-resolution times. Their cases can be automatically tied to complaints and propagate common data, enabling faster investigations, reportability determination and electronic submissions.
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Also, their enterprise technology enables them to capture nonconformances with batch details which can quickly trigger ship holds, dispositions, and field actions.
And many of these major innovations trickle downstream to corrective and preventive actions (CAPA), Engineering Change Orders (ECOs), and business processes.
Having the ability to close the quality loop throughout the entire enterprise value chain can not only revolutionize a necessary process, it can deliver better patient experiences and outcomes.
Improving traditional therapies
While headlines about new strains of Covid-19 and Monkeypox continue to circulate, the most common chronic diseases continue to grow at alarming rates.
Technology is helping to both manage difficult symptoms of these diseases, and find proactive ways to prevent them before the onset.
Advances in technology are giving patients their independence back. Think of how much easier a diabetes patient’s day-to-day life would be by conducting therapies in their own home instead of adjusting their scheduling around trips to the hospital for recurring appointments. Not to mention the lowered cost.
Imagine a world where therapies for type 2 diabetes (T2D) have the potential to prevent or even reverse its course. In the U.S. alone approximately 30 million people are diagnosed with T2D and half of them have difficulty controlling it.
Leveraging software as a medical device (SaMD)
Smart technology is virtually inescapable today. We use software devices in many aspects of our lives—in our homes, in our cars, in our pockets. And our medical needs are no exception.
Software as a Medical Device (SaMD) is one of the fastest growing areas of medtech innovation, enabling tangible life-saving results from:
- Remote patient monitoring Faster, more accurate disease diagnosis and treatment decisions, such as stroke and pulmonary issues
- Streamlined workflows & coordination for care teams
- Digital Therapeutics and Digital Companions
…and the list is increasing exponentially. SaMD has changed how patients manage their health and interact with healthcare professionals.
Ushering in the future of care
The pace of medtech innovation is accelerating so much it almost feels as if we’ve stepped into the future. There are groundbreaking companies focused on eradicating certain cancers that are offering comprehensive genomic profiling (CGP) which provides results from a simple blood draw in days. This allows oncologists to obtain information quicker and advise the right treatment to each of their cancer patients.
This is just one example of how patients at all stages of cancer can live longer and healthier through the power of blood tests and the data they unlock.
The secret weapon
The secret weapon is the ability to connect all business processes on a single platform solution. Keeping pace with top innovators requires a modern system to manage integrated change processes and cross-functional collaboration across the entire product and software lifecycle.
The critical and complex products that patients rely upon demand responsibility to ensure the best availability, quality, outcomes and uptime.
Photo: metamorworks, Getty Images
Chuck is the VP of MedTech and Life Sciences Industry Marketing at Propel Software. Formerly, as a Solution Architect and Program Manager at Stryker Corporation, he implemented and supported global PLM, QMS, and digitalization projects. Chuck has deep domain expertise on the development, compliance, and commercialization of medical device products, along with providing high-quality support in launching new products. Over 20 years of experience across senior positions in enterprise software solutions with companies such as Agile Software, Oracle, and PTC.
