Published on the 27/06/2013 | Written by Newsdesk
Sir Ray Avery and other heavyweights debated the future of medical technology at a public panel discussion ahead of the Health Congress 2013…
Hosted by (IPENZ) and the Medical Technology Association of New Zealand the panel discussion featured Kiwi scientist and innovator Sir Ray Avery; hospital manager and health-technology advisor to DHBs, Dr Claudia Wyss; consumer health-technology innovator and VP of business development at WellnessFX, Zak Holdsworth; and founder and CEO of health-tech start-up Zephyr Technologies, Brian Russell.
The foursome debated the role of IT in the healthcare sector, which is recognised as one of the slowest adopters of new technology. With some DHBs sporting more than 3000 databases and concerns about security of patient records, this is no great wonder. However, things are changing. The DHBs are in the process of integrating all the fragmented silos of the healthcare system, a new, more tech-savvy generation of clinicians is coming up through the ranks, and security is “not even a top-five issue”.
The changes are also rubbing off on the IT sector that serves it. “The medical technology sector is nascent in Silicon Valley but investors are keen,” said San Francisco-based Holdsworth. Rather than replacing doctors the clinicians’ ability to treat patients should be augmented by technology. The focus of health technology these days seems to be on monitoring and providing continuous data on patients’ conditions. And this can help to drive engagement, making people care about their health, and providing a basis for communication between clinician and patient.
Holdsworth said he sees biotech sensors as “exciting and truly disruptive to the medical industry”. Sir Ray agreed, saying that bio-devices allow us to continually monitor health, analyse the data and reveal underlying meaning.
Rather than having to rely on one-off readings that only provide a snapshot in time, a continuous stream of data can offer far greater insight into conditions. “That’s the real gold,” he said. “All innovation starts with information and that’s what we are doing mining big data,” he explained.
“But it’s not just about measuring, it’s about what you do with that data,” he added.
How to deal with these massive amounts of data is something that the health sector is still trying to work out.
At the moment there is no infrastructure in place to examine the data properly and offer the insights that could be vital. Whoever solves the big data issue for hospitals will win, suggested Dr Wyss.
Another major issue focused on by the panel is that of getting new medical technology past the gatekeepers.
Russell said that at present the average adoption cycle of new medical technology is 19 years because health is a serious issue and there are many ‘customers’ who must sign off on new ideas. The conversation needs to stop being about technology versus doctors, he said. Vendors and clinicians have to work together to create a product that already has a natural market.
Today, “medical technology vendors need to work with DHBs to have a value-sharing approach rather than a value-claiming approach,” concluded Dr Wyss. That is how Orion Health and Fisher & Paykel started out – as partnerships with the DHBs to provide what the patients needed.
