Medical Plastics News editor Laura Hughes spoke to experience agency Rightpoint about the launch of its new app which aims to provide better communication between patients and care providers.
Rightpoint, an independent customer experience agency, has recently announced the formalisation of its healthcare practice, as well as a new medical software certification, which will enable the company to deliver FDA-approved medical grade software. This will mark the launch of a formally structured healthcare practice.
Rightpoint have created an app that improves communications between patients and care providers. The app is customisable to any condition so, for instance, it might instruct a participant with a low blood sugar reading to drink a glass of juice.
Greg Raiz, chief innovation officer, Rightpoint answered some questions prior to the announcement going live on March 25th.
Why is this announcement of particular interest to our readers?
We've seen an increase in software applications used in conjunction with plastics in medicine. Rightpoint has done work in pre-surgery visualisation, as well as created an application for post-surgery monitoring. We believe that medical software applications can improve the patient experience. Rightpoint has been developing marketing websites for many years, but for the first time we can now connect our agency across a larger cross-section of capabilities.
How relevant is this news for companies in the US who are making medical devices with plastics?
This is very relevant for companies making medical devices. We've found that as medical devices are getting smaller, more of their technology and functionality is being moved into either mobile devices or onto the cloud. We've been developing internet of things devices for years and can now connect those skills and capabilities with our work in medical devices. Our ISO certification allows us to build medical software and we believe that devices paired with medical software is a trend that's only going to expand over the next decade.
What are the advantages of this announcement for companies making medical devices with plastics in the US?
The main advantage is the depth of our capabilities in designing great user experiences. Most companies working on software or medical devices come from manufacturing backgrounds. The Rightpoint approach is grounded in software and agile principles, allowing us to move quickly and build innovative, forward-thinking quality user experiences for medical devices.
What differences do you believe you will see as a result of the certification of Rightpoint’s new Quality Management System (QMS) by NQA US?
Rightpoint was previously doing some medical work, however we were working within other organisation's QMS systems. This new certification will allow us to utilise our agile design and engineering process to build medical products at a fraction of the time and cost that's typically found in larger medical device organisations.