Insight Articles in this Series

1. 6 Indispensable Tools To Drive Effective User-Centered Design 11/2/2016

   With every research touchpoint, it’s important to start by concisely defining the purpose of the effort (what do we need to learn?) and, from there, determining the tools most likely to fulfill the need.

2. 3 Ingredients To Bake The Perfect Device Development Plan 8/22/2016

   The definition of what constitutes “innovation” in the medical device industry has become enigmatic in recent years. To drive commercial success in a crowded market, products need to address conflicting sets of user needs while simultaneously addressing market opportunities. 

3. Your Device Is Safe And Effective, But Is It Desirable? 7/25/2016

   It is possible -- and encouraged -- to transition from design inputs that help create useful and usable devices to inputs that make a product desirable. Desirability transforms a product from merely acceptable to a solution that encourages adoption and long-term brand loyalty, achieves differentiation in a crowded marketplace, and helps support better medical outcomes.

4. Med Device Rosetta Stone: Translating User Needs Into Design Inputs 6/24/2016

   Designing optimal solutions means taking into consideration all of the influences on the user, including technology strategies, market trends and opportunities, and even regulatory and reimbursement systems. The comes the tough part: How do you translate user needs into specific and actionable design inputs?

5. Innovative vs. Intuitive: 5 Ways To Ensure Novelty Doesn’t Compromise Usability 5/16/2016

   Innovation can often upset the apple cart, especially in cases where new and unfamiliar technologies are utilized to enable new functionality. This less-than-optimal user experience can hurt the product’s adoption and lead to high rates of abandonment. Here are five suggestions to ensure that new designs lead to safe, effective, and desirable outcomes.

6. 3 Key Healthcare Adoption Drivers: How They (Should) Shape Product Development 3/17/2016

   Introducing a new product into a hospital or other healthcare system is an increasingly arduous task. Compelling, user-centered design alone doesn’t ensure a product’s successful introduction or adoption. Striking the right balance to ensure key priorities are met — across both the complex healthcare ecosystem and the larger audience of device stakeholders — could be the difference between market failure and commercial success.

7. Buy, Or Bye-Bye? How To Vet Novel Medical Device Technologies 2/2/2016

   While there are numerous influencers, but it is clear that technology acquisition and development is the engine now driving medical device innovation. This guide describes how to evaluate new technology appropriately by looking at two key components: The technology’s core performance characteristics, and its appropriateness to users and their expectations. 

8. The Optimized Path To Innovation 12/15/2015

   Historically, medtech's primary process of uncovering the next great opportunity has been significant investment in internal R&D. But today, amazing technologies and ideas are being born out of universities, incubators, and accelerators. Corporations that have established strong relationships with these idea hotbeds will be able to more easily access breakthrough technologies early in development.

9. Navigating The Universe Of Risk In Medical Device Development (With Infographic) 10/15/2015

   Varying levels of risk exist within any development process, but these risks are compounded in the development of products and services for the medical device space. Failing to recognize these risks can lead to time-intensive and costly missteps. Here, we’ll outline risks faced by medtech developers, as well as ways to mitigate those issues, decreasing time-to-market and increasing the likelihood of product success.

10. 4 Ways Med Device Developers Can Capitalize On The Internet Of Things 8/13/2015

    As connected devices begin to permeate the home environment, they can enable smarter consumer decision-making regarding health matters. What will ultimately drive device developer success is the quality of their new technologies’ connectivity, hardware system design, and comfort, as well as their ability to deliver more meaningful healthcare outcomes. Once you have found a way to fit into a user’s lifestyle, the next big development step is to present content that is relevant not only to the primary user, but to all stakeholders who will use the information.