Corbin Barnett I like to measure innovation as a "cart and horse". The cart, is the environment and a more abstract look at how well creativity, new ideas, and pan-disciplinary collaboration can be take place and be fostered. The horse, is how well the "new innovations" can be acted on and brought to market/the end user (certainly more quantifiable by any of the factors you mentioned). I think this rather company-specific measurement could be applied repetitively to see realistic industry trends

Brian K. Buntz Interesting take. It seems like the "cart" as you put it — the broader healthcare ecosystem — is also influencing how we measure what is innovative. It is not enough any more to merely improve the standard of care and create devices that make doctors happy. Now, medical devices must ideally play a role in making the entire healthcare system more efficient and data driven.

Would be interested in hearing an example of the "cart and horse" model applied to a medical device company — real or imagined.

Corbin Barnett That's a great point. I definitely can see the unique regulatory, legal, and financial burdens with healthcare giving medical devices innovation a different definition than in most non-medical industries.

Well, with my company our "cart" is a cross disciplinary team of physicians, mechanical/electrical engineers, and bio-medical engineers who each have different levels of experience with the regulatory/finance side of medicine. We started development as one group will all factors sitting at the table. Our "cart" is our high energized start up mentality, and how easily we can adapt to various events/changes. Now, my company is definitely in the start up realm and I cannot speak on behalf of larger companies. There perspective would be very interesting to hear, because I know for obvious reasons it's much harder to foster a start-up type of approach.

Steve Weisner Not sure why you restricted the measure of innovation to PMA devices approved as they are Class 3 devices. My company invented, implemented and cleared a Class 2 device which makes a measurement of muscle oxygenation which is a new measurement and pH (not new, but done noninvasively). Surely these are signs of innovation. One other sign of innovation is making 'old' devices or measurements wireless and providing medical applications on tablets and phones. There has been a recent influx of this type of innovation, although admittedly you have to separate the useful apps from the 'garbage' apps.

Brian K. Buntz Thanks, Steve. Class 2 devices can certainly be innovative, too. I see innovation measured in terms of meeting the needs of the market. Apple, for instance, helped popularize the computer mouse, the iPhone, and iPad—but none of those products were really that novel technologically speaking. Similarly, you point out that many companies are rebooting older medical technologies by giving them wireless functionality. Which apps like this do you see as being the most promising?

Corbin: It's interesting you mention the importance of having a cross disciplinary team. This is something that seems to be popular in Silicon Valley. I heard one of the guys from the design firm IDEO recommending that companies bring in secretaries and junior staff to help with initial brainstorming.

It seems most big med device companies leave startups to invent new technologies and then strategically watch them to see which seem most promising over time, eventually either investing or acquiring the ones they find most promising.

Javier Miguel Cabrera Contreras Innovación in medical devices are very much inteerlock with profits.
In a joint prosthesis business of 83 billion dollars by 2030, any idea to change the old Total hip prosthesis surgery is repealed by the orthopaedic medical manufacturers industry, and already the major ones have rejected a mini arthroscopic method to reach the hip joint from behind avoiding puncturing the capsule.
By drilling a mini tunnel in the neck and head of the femur, we can reach the hip joint , to resurface with biomaterials, stem cells etc damages in the articular cartilage, just like dentists do with dental caries preventing the deterioration and removal of the tooth.
Due to high costs and multiple complications of total hip prosthesis surgery, society and health aurthorities are demanding new methods to prevent the appeareance of osteoarthrosis in the hip and other major joints
See: www.biototalhip.com

Jay Evans Innovation in the medical device market continues. The problem to me is that it is incremental in real benefit to the patient/doctor/hospital and/or not in proportion to its cost. This has also happened in other industries such as aerospace. The most recent Boeing Dreamliner is an advance in fuel economy, lift, passenger comforts and navigation. But in terms of speed, altitude, and rough external design it it not much different than aircraft made in the 1960's.

This is happening in Medical Device as well. There are many studies that show there is little extra effectiveness in total knees than those offered 20 years ago. Just as physics limits the advancement with aircraft it also limits the use of poly, metal, PEEK, etc.

Couple the above fact with a national healthcare administration that wants to model our healthcare services after the British NHS and you will find a limit that healthcare will pay for any technology regardless of what it does.

Jay Evans Another challenge with innovation in medical device is for the small or medium device company, is the innovation for a particular product that may be of a niche category enough of an advantage to offset a bundled product of inferior product from a larger company that is part of a significant cost savings to the hospital?

Kirk Becker Hi all,
I've read some great comments and thought I'd like to add my own based on a personal experience where I had a hospital stay for a couple of days recently. Nothing like a good ole stay in the hospital to bring out the "why haven't they done this?" ideas. To me innovation means improving the user experience - solving a problem to make the device simpler, lighter and smaller. You find out real quick when you are a patient that it doesn't take to long to get pretty crowded and tangled up as more things are stuck into you or attached to you.

Let's start with one idea. Those awful heart monitors! Think of a device the size and weight of a large brick with a half dozen wires that are attached to sensors that are stuck onto your body with adhesive tape stronger than the stuff they use to hold body panels on a race car.......... never mind that the nurse also has to cut a perfectly good gown so the wires can pass thru so your gown isn't held up. We decided to cut my gown when it became apparent that the wires were not long enough to reach underneath thus holding the gown high enough for certain things to be seen - that should not be seen. Next the patient gets to figure out hold how to hang onto that "brick" while holding the gown to one side and try going to the bathroom - let alone the whole wiping thing.

SO my idea of innovation is a simple one - innovation is anything that improves the user experience. Thanks for letting me get that one "off my chest" - pun intended.

Some very interesting perspectives, particularly from Javier re a new approach to total hip. Having to work and sell into the NHS here in England, we see increasing pressure on price points and over the next 2/3 years, focus on 'whole life' costs as the NHS looks to save around 5% of total annual budget every year until 2020!!!!!!

We are developing a small, non-invasive technology that will impact directly on improving patient safety, address direct overhead (and track the saving), be non-intrusive to both patient AND staff and deliver real-time data for identifying resource shortfall and patient harm 'hotspots'. In terms of our natural competitors in our market sector, we are around 30-40% less cost.

A 1,000 bed NHS hospital should be able to reduce certain patient harm episodes by as much as 50% (saving around £250k p.a) and deliver real 'hard' cost savings of as much as £1m p.a.

We continue to measure the improved process management at ward level, have identified further cost savings and improvement in patient care, whilst reducing staff work loads.

The system will be low cost, require no capital outlay and will provide 'live' ROI to both hospital & supplier management.

There are a good number of British SME's working hard to improve the offering in view of the commercial pressure within the healthcare supply industry to save money AND deliver improved outcomes, innovation indeed!

Paul M. Stein The question has a very simple answer. The issue of innovation now compared to before has to do with the disease landscape. Currently, the "easy stuff" has already been taken care of with some fantastic, past innovation, circa 1985-2000. That means that the real "difficult stuff" remains. And, that means that unless there is some massive, long-term effort on the part of companies with very deep pockets and extreme drive to tackle it, and we all know that isn't happening, then innovation stops...as we have seen for the most part in the last decade.

Karen D. Innovation. Mid and small companies need to get innovative on how to afford innovation! It can be expensive if you do not have deep pockets, (i.e. not a J&J or Medtronic or Google etc.). R&D costs can be high. Outsourcing development and sharing the cost may not be a "new" model (there is a downside like not owning the IP), but perhaps with the right contract in place it could work for all parties involved.

Brian K. Buntz Karen, interesting that you mention Google as an example. When I think of Google, I think of the considerable sums of cash they have spent developing products that are flops. Google Wave anyone? even Google Plus hasn't really caught on—not to mention Google Glass, but perhaps it is too early to tell with wearables, which are still really in their infancy. In the end, I think Google shows that a company can have tons of money, known for having a great culture (Google usually scores as one of the best places to work), and still struggle to innovate. It is also worth noting that many of the big device companies have developed venture arms to help scout for promising new ideas from startups and invest in them when appropriate.

Karen D. Speaking of Google, they are ramping up on their life science department hiring scientists and nanotechnologists. One of the projects is with J&J to produce sensors on med. devices. Although the nanotechnologists...don't know where that is coming from! Who would have thought they would go out of their core competency! Google Glass is already gaining grounds in physician training application.
It is interesting how it is being utilized amongst surgeons (i.e. at ISMICS in Berlin, a UK surgeon talked about it for long distance 3D instruction). A good thing. Then there is Facebook. I can't wait to see how Mr.Zuckerberg uses his new (3D toy) he purchased last year for 2bill, Oculus Rift, a total 3D immersion program. He wants to utilize the technology I hear for medical devices applications as well. Probably his version of the old board game "Operation". Frankly... I think they all watched way too much Star Trek growing up. They have more money than they know what to do with so they want to play in the biotech/med. device sandbox. Apple is another story.

I live and work in Silicon Valley. So I get a front row seat to the greatest show on earth. How this story will end, . who knows. I think we live by the mantra "reinvent or die" here.