Why evolution, not revolution could be the key to medtech success
Who doesn’t love a success story? And I guess that the example of the Elvie Trainer which is now being supplied by the UK’s National Health Service Supply Chain, is a particularly fine case in point for me, given the way I’ve been championing femtech products over the last year or so.
What I love about this product - designed to help treat stress urinary incontinence (SUI) - and its journey to the patient, is that it highlights that small developments can lead to big changes in how a product is viewed, and the way that the market therefore reacts to it.
Products that treat SUI have of course, been available for years. In that sense, the Elvie Trainer isn’t entering new ground or revolutionising the treatment process. However, by connecting the product to an app and allowing the user to receive feedback, it’s breaking the mould and offering the user something useful and tangible for a particular condition. The results speak for themselves – the product apparently leads to a 10% increase in both compliance and success rates, as well as helping reduce surgery rates by 50%. The end result is a saving to the NHS, per patient, of £424. It’s hard not to be impressed by those figures.
Digital devices and tech have been flooding the market for several years now. What the Elvie Trainer highlights is that it’s possible to take an existing concept for a product and make it modern to meet the expectations of today’s patient and to address the way that they, and the healthcare professional, want to use devices and engage with them for maximum potential.
When I’m out and about talking to medical device manufacturers or suppliers, I often hear that this sector isn’t full of trailblazing innovation. Instead changes come slowly and incrementally. That may be true but in some ways it’s these incremental changes that are indeed trailblazing and are the ones that end up making a significant difference. It’s clear that we don’t need to redesign the wheel, but any changes that make it go faster, more efficiently and lead to cost savings, will be swooped upon, and rightly so.
It’s a situation that of course, doesn’t just apply to medical device manufacture and supply. As increasing numbers of us want products and services that combine functionality with the latest technology, there are opportunities to be had throughout all types of industry to create products with increasing relevance to today’s tech-savvy audience.
I find this aspect of the medical device sector increasingly exciting. The possibilities are never-ending and with careful collaboration we could be looking at a raft of products that help treat a range of diseases and conditions just by increasing technology making it relevant to the user. Who knows where medical device evolution might lead us?