The objective of this article is to bring awareness to the changing landscape of the healthcare ecosystem and the clinician’s role with respect to medical devices, medical systems, technology, and processes involved in the system. Clinicians interact with them every day and have a huge implication for them directly, and to their patients indirectly. Clinicians are actively involved in clinical research which involves the knowledge and practice of the disease, diagnosis and management, etc. Recently, the role of non-clinical aspects such as medical devices, processes and systems of the healthcare ecosystem is gaining popularity. Hence, there is potential to explore this aspect of the healthcare delivery system to redesign and innovate for improving clinical outcomes. To achieve this, the clinicians need to understand these systems from a perspective that will help them to identify the problems and develop innovative solutions. Just like the clinical research is systematic and methodical, the improvement of the medical systems is also methodical to a large extent. This includes concepts and techniques that are quite fresh and new to a clinician who probably has never been exposed to these in their medical careers. These general principles of Innovation and Design thinking applied to other domains have yielded fantastic results and for the same to be applied in the medical domain, the role of the practicing clinician is central. As clinicians, we have always practiced innovation at some point of time in our career when we would have faced a resource crunch and were compelled to save the children and hence have tried to innovate on the devices, processes, etc., in our own way and has worked many a times. To generate many such solutions at large scale, the whole process needs to be methodical and systematic so that the solutions developed are safe and consistent at all times. Such a solution can be scaled up and made to reach across such setups where it is needed and there can be a measurable improvement in efficiency, quality, effectiveness, or economics of patient care delivery on a large scale.
Objectives: Medical Technology (MedTech) can be defined as the application of science to develop solutions to health problems. It also includes devices, processes and existing systems in the healthcare ecosystem. Biodesign process is the tried and tested methodology of identifying the unmet clinical needs and solving the problems of the healthcare ecosystem by applying science and technology. Hence, biodesign process is nothing but a process of developing systematic MedTech Innovations. Just like there is clinical research for disease and all its aspects like etiology, management etc, the systematic process of identifying problems and finding solutions in healthcare ecosystem is termed biodesign process. The starting point in this whole process is to define the right problem, figuring out all the possible solutions, zeroing on to the right solution and see that it solves the problem efficiently. But ultimately, did that solve the problem? At the first instance, was there a problem at all? These are the questions that arise during the course and biodesign process has the answers to all these questions. This process allows the innovator to ask the right questions and find the right answers in the best possible way, so that any of the time and effort of the team are not futile. The biodesign process established by the Stanford biodesign program gave the basic understanding of the process, which was modified to the Indian healthcare ecosystem to identify relevant problems and innovate suitable solutions. Materials and Methods: Multidisciplinary teams went through clinical immersions, figured out various crucial needs, validated their understanding with subject experts, brainstormed about the new strategies/solutions/ approaches, and then did the prototyping of these solutions. Results: 71 detailed observations made overall of which 52 critical and unmet clinical problem statements with significant negative impact on patient outcome were obtained. Conclusion: A structured biodesign process with active role of the clinician at every stage gives better insights into the unmet clinical needs in the healthcare ecosystem.
For an idea to be validated, prototyped and tested, adequate financial planning plays a major role in the long journey of the idea from the brains to the market. There are various ways of getting funds for the startup. The founders usually start with their own money from their savings or some borrowings from family and friends which is called bootstrapping and is very common and crucial, akin to doctors starting their own clinics and small nursing homes. As they start to grow, large funds are needed in the early stage to set the foot firm with the help of an angel investor/ seed investor which is like starting a full-fledged hospital. The Venture capitalist comes in at a stage when the idea is proven and started with operations, early-stage customers and has a major potential to expand, just like when more branches of hospitals are planned. Private equity companies and investment banks are those who are keen to invest in companies who have proved themselves beyond doubt with strong leadership in the market and are looking for a major return on investment by making the company bigger, which is like planning a pan India network of the hospital chain. These investments happen multiple times or rounds at various stages of the company usually termed series A to series D or E and ultimately leading to the Initial Public Offering when it goes public from private holding. This funding journey is a well-planned effort quite specific to the investment stage, investor type, and their preferences. The recognition of the startups and their ideas plays a major role in them reaching to market and access to funding opportunities. The funding and national recognition from various govt. and private agencies such as BIRAC, FICCI, NASSCOM, Wellcome trust, and Villgro and international agencies such as CAMTech, Bill and Melinda gates foundation, Grand Challenges Canada, Stanford, and Harvard gives the much needed attention from the potential investors and is a major advantage which should be utilized well. Social media recognition plays a major role in recent times which has the potential to make an innovation “viral” and reach millions of customers and make relevant investors and govt. agencies notice, which can be a huge breakthrough for the company if the innovation has a social impact. We would like to make this article more practical, experiential, and contextual for better connect with pediatrician colleagues.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.