Building a Future of Healthcare Where Patients Experience the True Value of MedTech
At some point in our lives most of us have spent time in a hospital, either to receive care ourselves or perhaps to visit someone we care about.
Indulge me and take a moment to picture the first time you remember visiting a hospital. What memory comes to mind? Is it the seemingly endless corridors that you see? Or maybe the smell of cleaning products? Or perhaps it is the taste of hospital meals that’s stuck with you?
Now try and layer that memory with the emotions that being in that hospital stirred in you. Was it happiness, such as excitedly meeting a new born sibling for the first time? Or was it a time filled with sadness when visiting a loved one for the last time. Or perhaps you were a patient yourself feeling fear that was mirrored in a loved one’s eyes. Maybe you’ve even been those eyes and know the heartfelt concern that comes with seeing a person you care for in the care of a hospital.
I have lost count of the number of times I have visited a hospital, both personally and professionally. I’ve worked in the hospital healthcare industry for over 20-years, many of which have been focused on the incredibly important area of MedTech.
This MedTech Week I’d like to share with you what continues to get me out of bed every day.
Our health and the health of our loved ones is arguably the thing we value above all else during our lifetime. Thus, the care services and practitioners who work tirelessly to ensure we have the best quality care on offer when we need it the most are a highly valued part of our communities.
However, the reality is that our much treasured healthcare institutions and the people who make them are under strain. There are more patients to treat for more years, with increasingly complex conditions and not enough money or people to treat them safely. On top of this, there’s too little space and less resource available to upgrade and expand hospitals.
Our healthcare systems need care, and this is where the next generation of MedTech is making a difference. The experience that our industry brings to the table allows us to listen and learn from care providers to consolidate insights. This forms a strong foundation upon which we can assess, propose and co-create customized solutions together with hospitals that address their efficiency, cost-based, care standardization and patient satisfaction challenges, to name a few.
At Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices, this is how we work collaboratively with care providers to ensure value is at the center of their services. Most importantly, it is at the center that patients and value meet, and where we can make the most meaningful impact.
Our recent value-based partnerships with hospitals have seen us doing just that. We’ve worked with one hospital on a theatre utilisation progreamme to deliver an additional 23,064 minutes of usable theatre time and 1795 bed days per year. This translates into the ability to undertake an additional 200–400 orthopadic procedures, ultimately meaning that more patients have access to much-needed treatment.We know that best-in-class healthcare doesn’t end at clinical outcomes. It also extends to a patient’s experience. Thus, the measure of the value MedTech can bring to healthcare systems must always be reflected holistically in the care patients receive.
Our enhanced recovery patient literature standardises messaging, meaning patients know exactly what to expect before, during and after their procedure, contributing to greater satisfaction with their care.
Healthcare based on value helps ensure patients, as well as their loved ones and the clinicians who care for them, know they have received the gold-standard of healthcare they deserved. Of course, it won’t always be possible to make every patient’s experience 100% positive, but a more informed and connected patient receiving care that’s more personalised to them is a happier patient.
These are the memories that we want everyone to take away from healthcare.
So, what gets me out of bed every day is seeing the value firsthand that MedTech brings to practitioners and their patients, and today – more than ever before – to the quality, safety and sustainability of that care for the next generation.
To find out more about how Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices is partnering with healthcare providers to co-create value-based solutions visit the MedTech Week website.
Neil Davis, Senior Director, Strategic Capabilities, Johnson & Johnson Medical Devices, UK & Ireland