Diabetes is becoming a growing problem with millions of people struggling to keep their blood glucose levels managed. In addition to altering diet and lifestyle, many patients must also rely on medication.
Everyone wants to think that their innovation program is going to change the world and that feeling persists, because successful innovation programs can have enormous real-world returns. Businesses can save millions of dollars, new business models can disrupt markets, but some of the most impactful innovation efforts are genuinely in the healthcare space. Not only does healthcare innovation overall save the system money (for every dollar spent on innovative medicines, total healthcare spending is reduced by $7.20) but it also has the power to truly save lives as evidenced by research that states “between 1980 and 2010, medical advancements helped add 5 years to U.S. life expectancy.”
In a world constantly changed by the digital transformation, one industry consistently lags behind all the rest: healthcare. For those within the field, it is open knowledge that while other industries are quick to adopt and implement novel technologies, in healthcare the change comes slowly.
Medical technology is without a doubt the biggest innovation to the healthcare industry. It can be called the largest driving factor and is a key role in virtually every aspect of healthcare. It’s becoming more and more clear that medical technology is influencing the way we are thinking about healthcare—especially patient care and efficiency—and will continue to shape the industry for the foreseeable future.
These days, when migrants arrive at a refugee camp, one of the first things they ask for is access to WiFi and electricity to recharge their cell phones. Their smartphone is as basic a resource for survival as food and water. This is a vivid reminder of the fact that we are fully immersed in a digital world.
The share of profits from new products is particularly high in medtech compared to other industries; and Arthur D. Little’s recent global Innovation Excellence study demonstrates that a high performance innovation system generates significant and quantifiable effects on profitability and accelerated time to market for new product development. This viewpoint outlines the future of the medtech industry and its opportunities as well as how to address the challenges through implementation of a well-designed Innovation Management System.
Living Well Collaborative is a new player in the innovation game and a sign of what's to come – downstream innovation management by and on behalf of users, interacting with academics and industry, jointly, to fashion the future. Deborah Mills-Scofield tunes into Living Well..
