Responsible innovation in orthopaedics: Ensure that patients are not left behind in drive toward medical efficiency

by JanPeter Heldt, Vice President & General Manager, Orthopaedics, Stryker Europe

In today’s environment, any company in the business of medical technology must also be in the business of medical efficiency and patient care optimization. As the challenges facing health care delivery have intensified, so too has our industry’s commitment to meeting the evolving needs of our key stakeholders — hospitals, practitioners, payers and patients. An industry that once focused first and foremost on the development of innovative OR products that enable practitioners to treat patients more successfully is now adopting a broader goal to help them work more efficiently — not just in the clinic or the OR, but throughout the entire episode of care.

It is an important shift, and one that has the potential to present our customers with viable solutions to the ongoing challenges associated with the delivery of care in an era of aging populations, growing chronic disease rates and rising health care costs. But supporting this shift requires that all stakeholders in the care continuum forge strategic alliances and leverage their unique skill sets to drive this new delivery model and realize efficiency opportunities.

A device manufacturer, for example, may have expertise in LEAN or Six Sigma manufacturing principles that can be transferred to hospitals to help them realize their objectives on the efficiency scale. Such alliances are already being forged between manufacturers and hospitals throughout the globe and industry. Stryker, for example, has been working with a rural hospital in Germany since 2007 on implementing LEAN and other mandates. Others in our industry are forging similar relationships. It is an emerging trend, and one that needs to continue growing.

But as we work to drive this trend forward, it is important for all of us to understand that the emphasis should not be on efficiency for efficiency’s sake, but on efficiencies that deliver value to all stakeholders — including patients. It is critical that the efficiencies we all work to introduce into the system positively impact not only patient outcomes but also patient experience, which unfortunately can be left out of the mix.

Some innovative hospitals in Europe and the United States are already urging the treatment community to push the shift from a provider-centric mindset to one that fully embraces the patient. Industry can and should embrace the opportunity to work with surgeons, hospitals, payer — and most of all patients — to ensure the patient experience is not compromised in the drive to make health care delivery more effective and efficient.