How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
washingtonmonthly.com
How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
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Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#2contact with our health care system the fifth leading cause of death in this country
Whoa. Can anyone give this in-passing snippet some context?
Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#3I experienced this somewhat when consulting for a medical device startup. They'd developed a modular system supporting Laparoscopic procedures, reducing hands during surgery, which equated to significant safety increases as well as cost reductions. However, their big issue continues to be navigating the procurement process at hospitals, which is akin to requiring a full time lobbyist per hospital for the duration of that hospital's adoption of their system: 2-3 years, after getting them to actually try the system, which often requires 18 months of demos, trials, and negotiations.
Our technologies we, geeks, develop are going to have a very hard time revolutionizing the medical industry. The big players have closed the door behind them in a major way.
Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#4Almost exactly the same with military equipment.
Design a product that saves the lives of front line troops, demo it to the troops and they love it.
Then try and sell it to the government and you are told that you have to form a consortium with an established supplier - Boeing/Lockheed-Martin/General Dynamics in the US, Thales/BAe/EADS in europe.
Now imagine the sort of deal you are offered as a startup negotiating with a trillion $$ global defense company with a stranglehold on the market!
Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#5contact with our health care system the fifth leading cause of death in this country Whoa. Can anyone give this in-passing snippet some context?
From wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nosocomial_infection
"In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that roughly 1.7 million hospital-associated infections, from all types of microorganisms, including bacteria, combined, cause or contribute to 99,000 deaths each year"
Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#6Someone needs to bring BYOD to the medical industry ;)
Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#7contact with our health care system the fifth leading cause of death in this country Whoa. Can anyone give this in-passing snippet some context?
Yeah, hospital-acquired infections are huge. In fact, they're a huge reason why we have so many aggressively resistant strains of organisms.
Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#8contact with our health care system the fifth leading cause of death in this country Whoa. Can anyone give this in-passing snippet some context?
It depends on quite what you consider a cause of death.
Medical errors officialy account for between 100,000 and 200,00 deaths per year, and between 20-35% of people who die in hospital are discovered at autopsy to have been misdiagnosed. BUT consider you are treating an 80year old man for pneumonia and when he dies the autopsy discovers he had undiagnosed prostate cancer - is that 'really' a medical error death?
Then there are around 100,000 deaths due to hospital infections. 30,000 of them from MRSA alone = twice the number of people who die of AIDS. The rates in nursing homes and other 'medical' facilities are probably much higher but aren't as well monitored or reported.
Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#9contact with our health care system the fifth leading cause of death in this country Whoa. Can anyone give this in-passing snippet some context?
The Institute of Medicine report "To Err is Human: Building A Safer Health System" states: "At least 44,000 people, and perhaps as many as 98,000 people, die in hospitals each year as a result of medical errors that could have been prevented". Some improvements have been made since then but it's still a huge problem.
http://www.iom.edu/Reports/1999/To-Err-is-Human-Building-A-S...
Re: How the medical supply industry blocks device startups from selling to hospitals
#10Interesting bit from the end of the article:
"This isn’t just bad news for Shaw. Because his company is in the red, he has been unable to pull together the financing he needs to expand his factory in Little Elm. So he has partnered with Chinese companies, which put up money to build assembly lines in China in return for permission to produce his syringes for the Chinese market. When his patents do run out, the Chinese manufacturers will be the ones poised to bring his technology to the world market, meaning all the jobs and economic benefits that could have gone to the local residents will instead go to the people of Gansu Province. "
Goddamnit.