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We recently read the blog post “Improving access to medical technologies for diabetes care in Europe” from the International Diabetes Federation Europe assessing issues in terms of access to medical technologies for people with diabetes. As a producer of technologies and devices for people with diabetes, we keep learning and, when necessary, adapting our practices to fill in the gaps highlighted by IDF Europe.

For a 3rd year in a row PatientView has published its study on “The corporate reputation of the medical device industry – from the patient perspective”. As in the past the reputation of the medical device industry and specific companies are measured by hundreds of patient groups from all over the world. In the latest […]

“How much is my life worth?” Patricia Garcia-Prieto, professor of Organisational Behaviour at the Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management and a mother of six and 11-year olds has asked this question multiple times. In her video, as a patient representative on a panel, she has been vocal about this thought that passed her mind every day. […]

The work we do at the Helen Hamlyn Centre for Design at the Royal College of Art in London focuses on developing projects with a strong emphasis on identifying and understanding everyday situations that people have difficulty with.  Our approach is inclusive: we work with many ‘users’ of a product, service or system in order […]

I overheard a debate at a breakfast meeting at the World Economic Forum Meeting of the New Champions in Dalian, China that went like this:

“The market won’t accept a malaria vaccine that costs more than $.40 a dose.”

“But that’s not possible, why can’t we just start solving the technical problem and then figure out how to pay for it?”

Despite the overwhelming impact that wounds have on healthcare systems, many people are still unaware of the risks for developing wounds when entering a healthcare setting.  In fact, 27-50 percent of acute hospital beds are likely to be occupied on any day by patients with a wound. Many of these patients will be at high risk of infection, which can result in extended hospital stays and for some, amputation.  Yet, patients can be better protected against such risks by instituting evidenced based guidelines in healthcare settings that include multidisciplinary approaches to wound care treatment.

Consider the cell phone.
As an engine of change, it is a romantically disruptive one, a technology that crisscrosses borders and thrives on connection in all its forms – to networks, to people, to the world. Already, in areas of Africa and India, mobile phones play every part at once, bankers and pharmacists and secretaries rolled into one. In developing countries, the path of least resistance to modernization is flung up one phone tower at a time. They have taken a platform we have spent on Angry Birds and advertisements, and woven a way of life.

Caveat Emptor, or ‘Buyer Beware’, is a commercial rule favouring the seller, now largely extinct due to modern consumer legislation. But the European Parliament’s ENVI Committee, in its amendment on the reprocessing of single-use medical devices, has unwittingly slipped something similar back in again. Given the complex and highly technical nature of the Medical Devices Directives, I can see where busy MEPs would struggle to understand the details and consequences of this amendment, so I think it is essential that we take a moment to read the fine print.

In the past, percussion of the abdomen, taking temperature, or tasting sugar in urine were considered diagnostic standard of care methodologies. Today, invitro diagnostics (IVD) provide additional objective biomarkers that diagnose cancer, infections, heart attacks and many other health conditions.