New wrinkle to vendor access. If you provide health insurance to your employees and you sell products to Baptist Health South Florida, you’ll have a leg up on the competition. Sudden Impact. The FDA lists 14 devices and products approved or cleared during the past fiscal year that it believes will have the most impact on patient care. Rocky road. If you want to see the future of medical technology, check out your local university. Measure your relationships with customers. Can hospitals and suppliers objectively evaluate their relationship and move it in a positive direction? Maybe, if they have the tool to do so. VOIP in your future? Internet phone services are starting to target small businesses.
If you provide health insurance to your employees and you sell products to Baptist Health South Florida, you’ll have a leg up on the competition. The Coral Gables, Fla.-based system has gone on record saying it will give preferential status to suppliers with employee health plans, according to a recent report in the Miami Herald. The decision is the first of its kind in South Florida and one of the few in the nation by a nongovernmental body, according to the newspaper. It also adds a wrinkle to the issue of vendor-access policies. (See October 2006 IMDA Update.) “It’s not going to change the world,” Baptist Health CEO Brian Keeley was quoted as saying. “But it’s going to make a philosophical statement: Treat your employees well. We need to take care of the people of South Florida.” Baptist Health comprises five hospitals and has an estimated 10,000 vendors. ''The whole idea is to be socially responsible,'' spokeswoman Jo Baxter was quoted as saying. “All things being equal, the vendor providing insurance will be selected, but in selected instances, on a case-by-case basis, we might actually pay a higher price to a vendor if there wasn't a huge disparity, because [Keeley] wants to make a statement.'' Baptist Health undoubtedly has its own interests at heart as well. Although the system had a strong financial statement last year, reflecting a net surplus of $193 million, it had to write off $363 million in gross charges for charity care and uncompensated services that same year. In fact, 26.8 percent of the population in Miami-Dade County are without health coverage; in nearby Broward County, 16.6 lack insurance. “You look at the growing number of uninsured, and there is no light at the end of the tunnel,” said Keeley.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Device Evaluation reviews and clears for marketing thousands of medical devices every year. In its Annual Report Fiscal Year 2005, the agency listed the 14 devices and products approved or cleared during the past fiscal year that it believes will have the most impact on patient care. They are:
New technology for the destruction of uterine
fibroids.
Sealant system for neurosurgical procedures.
Artificial spinal disc
New lead wire for pacemakers
Endovascular graft for treatment of aneurysms
Stent for prevention of future strokes
New prosthetic jaw joint
Catheter to treat cerebral ischemia
Monitoring leaks of vascular graft
Surgical laser for use in assisted-reproductive
procedures
Laser scanning technology for confocal microscopy of
the cornea
Patient -administered analgesia control
Technology for maintaining patient data
Oral rinse for gingivitis.
If you want to see the future of medical technology, check out your local university. In fact, universities are filing patents (though not, of course, all medical-product-related) at a furious pace. According to the Association of University Technology Managers, Northbrook, Ill., between fiscal year 1991 and 2004, annual invention disclosures increased more than 290 percent, new patents filed increased nearly 450 percent, and new licenses and options executed increased 510 percent. Despite all the activity, however, some of those great ideas never make it to market. That’s because universities have to rely on private companies to license, manufacture and market their innovations. And sometimes, universities and private companies don’t see eye to eye. Often, academics and marketing professionals disagree on the value of the innovation, says William R. Brody, president of Johns Hopkins University, in a recent interview in the New York Times. “If universities have a patent, they think it’s worth a lot,” he says. “But companies feel a patent isn’t worth a lot because they’re going to have to invest a ton of money to bring it to market. So the question is, what is the actual value?” Universities and private companies sometimes have divergent goals for innovative technology. “On one hand, universities would prefer, in keeping with the intent of the federal government, not to license something to one company exclusively,” says Brody. “Our intention is to make technology as broadly available as possible. Companies, on the other hand, want exclusive licenses. That’s one bone of contention.” Rich tradition Universities have a rich tradition of medical device innovation. Johns Hopkins, for example, was responsible for developing technology for magnetic resonance imaging inside blood vessels, as well as an inflatable vest for cardiopulmonary resuscitation, says Brody. But for some, innovation is a losing proposition. In the year 2000, universities had about 21,000 active licenses with industry, but only 125 generated more than $1 million in licensing and royalty income, says Brody. “Unless you have a big hit like Gatorade, which came out of the University of Florida, or a drug that the University of Wisconsin had many years ago to prevent blood from clotting, or the recombinant DNA patent that the University of California at San Francisco and Stanford share, the aggregate income doesn’t cover the expenses.” One organization that attempts to promote the commercialization of university research is the Association of University Technology Managers. Founded in 1974, the organization comprises more than 350 universities, research institutions, teaching hospitals and government agencies, as well as companies involved in managing and licensing innovations derived from academic and nonprofit research. Despite the challenges universities face in turning their ideas into reality, the news isn’t all bad. In fiscal year 2002, AUTM members reported 569 new product introductions. Nearly 23 percent of their 26,086 active license agreements were associated with product sales by their licensees. “[R]esearch is about planting seeds and watering them and occasionally pulling the weeds out,” says Brody. It would appear that commercializing that research calls for some weeding of its own.
By Laura Thill Can hospitals and suppliers objectively evaluate their relationship and move it in a positive direction? Maybe, if they have the tool to do so. Strategic Marketplace Initiative (SMI), a Scituate, Mass.-based forum for medical products vendors and providers’ contracting executives, believes it has developed such a tool. Introduced at the annual conference of the Association for Healthcare Resource & Materials Management, the electronic “Tool for Measuring Effective Relationships” provides food for thought for both buyers and sellers. The software was the product of a yearlong process in which a team of suppliers and providers identified methods for measuring and monitoring the effectiveness of business relationships. The team focused on six aspects of such relationships:
“We were trying to create a process whereby business partners could communicate about – and monitor – their relationship,” says SMI project manager Dennis Orthman. “This is a collaborative tool that enables both the supplier and provider to come together and evaluate their relationship.” To work most effectively, the software tool calls for hospital and provider business partners to review each of the six elements (and the subsets within them) and determine which are the most important to the relationship. “This in itself promotes communication, as one party may [value] something that the other party is unaware of,” says Orthman. Once both parties agree on the importance of the different elements of their relationship, they can rate their collective performance on a scale of 1 to 5. “In this way, the tool attempts to quantify a subjective process,” explains Orthman. “Sharing information is critical to developing long-term relationships between business partners. This tool takes a business relationship beyond the traditional transaction, where [one party] orders a product and the other party ships it.” The software is free and can be downloaded from the SMI website.
Internet phone services are starting to target small businesses. After catering primarily to large companies or consumers, vendors of voice over Internet protocol, or VOIP, are creating packages of services for entrepreneurs, according to a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. Last year, small- and medium-size companies spent $2.1 billion on Internet phone systems, equipment and services, compared with $4 billion for large businesses, according to the report. By 2010, however, small-business spending should climb to $8.9 billion, according to Terry White, analyst for market-research firm InfoTech, Parsippany, N.J. Small firms don’t get a lot of features, usually just basics, such as voice mail, according to the article. Providers cut costs by routing calls over their private data networks instead of traditional copper phone lines. Providers of basic VOIP services for small businesses include XO Communications, a unit of XO Holdings Inc., Reston, Va.; Cbeyond Inc. of Atlanta; and M5 Networks Inc., of New York. As interest grows, larger companies such as AT&T, Verizon Communications Inc. and Qwest Communications International are also targeting more small businesses. Vonage, the nation’s largest provider of VOIP to consumers, has reportedly been vocal about its desire to expand into the business market. The company offers two plans. The first, priced at $40 a month, includes 1,500 minutes of call time; the second, at $50 a month, offers unlimited minutes and the ability to contact more countries overseas. Next year, cable companies are expected to get into the small-business market, just as they have with the consumer market. “[Small business] really is the remaining battleground for all of these service providers,” John Macario, president of the Boston-based consulting company Savatar Inc., is quoted as saying. "We're watching closely to see if these emerging companies can keep the momentum up and become established players, if the phone companies can step up their game, or if cable companies can get in through the side doors."
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degenerative disc disease. The disc consists of two
metal (cobalt-chrome alloy) endplates, which are
anchored to the top and bottom surfaces of the
vertebrae, and a plastic (ultra-high molecular weight
polyethylene) core, which fits between the two
endplates. The plastic core and endplates help restore
the natural distance between the two vertebrae. The
endplates can slide over the domed parts of the core,
which can allow movement at the level where it is
implanted.
intended for measuring intrasac pressure during
endovascular abdominal aortic aneurysm repair. The
device is intended to be used as an adjunctive tool in
the detection of intraoperative endoleaks. It is
designed to be implanted in the abdominal aortic
aneurysm sac during the deployment of a stent-graft. It
senses the pressure in the sac, so that information
regarding possible endoleaks or rupture can be
collected.
System by 