Moving forward together virtually in medtech

With every crisis, life changes. Sometimes for the better, other times not so much.

As we examine the COVID-19 crisis, we ask are there any positive changes for medtech?

Work from home: Outside of manufacturing it is not only more possible than most companies allowed themselves to consider, it’s actually more productive in many cases and better for the environment. This nice green initiative costs a company almost nothing and may save some money. For the employees, work/life balance can improve.

Telemedicine: This overnight transition is 20 years in the making. It had been held back in most states because of reimbursement issues. Now that patients and practitioners are experiencing the benefits of telemedicine, it will be difficult to take away. This is good as telemedicine will result in more clinical productivity (seeing more patients) which will ultimately lead to more of our products being used. We should all be encouraging our local Congress people to tell Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to keep the telemedicine reimbursement allowed under the COVID emergency. They should continue to expand it.

Digital health: A positive trend during the past decade, digital health needed a good crisis to get it over the hump of implementation inertia. We’re now seeing examples of higher growth in digital health solutions due to necessity. Most solutions will ultimately eliminate costs from our overly bureaucratic processes within healthcare.

Innovation: As industry veterans, it’s been exciting for us to see (1) the pace of innovation created by the talented and creative people in this industry and (2) the extraordinary efforts by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to allow use of innovative products to meet the pandemic’s needs. This industry/regulatory collaboration will hopefully bring benefits for years to come.

Of course, there are the very sad and unfortunate circumstances of lost lives during this crisis. We don’t take those lightly. What we can do is continue to adjust our attitude to consider what is possible for ourselves and for our industry.

We believe that COVID has proven our medtech industry is more innovative than ever. It has also shown us that we can create strong relationships with other industries (medtech and automotive for example), and that our talented people are more committed each day to creating a better future for all of our health issues.

Bottom Line: Even for those sidelined due to elective procedures (which we don’t believe will happen again – but that’s another article topic), we believe collectively that the medtech industry has proven itself more essential than ever. We remain proud to be alongside each and every one of you striving every day to make our lives better and healthier!

About the authors: CEO Florence Joffroy-Black is a long-time medtech M&A and marketing expert. She can be reached at florencejblack@medworldadvisors.com. Managing Director Dave Sheppard is a former medical OEM Fortune 500 executive and an experienced MedTech M&A professional. He can be reached at davesheppard@medworldadvisors.com.