Last week, Paul Martyn published the article Controlling U.S. Healthcare Costs: Hospitals Must Drive The Rescue Plan in Forbes. He addresses the fundamental illogic of a medical technology marketplace where the buyer’s preferences are not driving purchasing decisions. Instead, due to lack of transparency and customer empowerment, the market is driven by supplier preferences in a market exchange governed by myth and buyer paralysis. The anachronism in a society that celebrates the virtues of market mechanisms is clear, and so are the immediate consequences for hospitals – and for healthcare as such: Manufacturer stock values soar while hospitals are struggling to provide proper patient care.
Innovative Health is an eager student of these mechanisms and actively seeks ways to create a fuller understanding of the dynamics in the medical technology world that make it difficult for hospitals to provide better care at a lower cost. Our interactive infographic about restrictive technology innovation illustrates the dynamics within the context of the medical technology complex. Paul Martyn uses the same term to denote a “taxation on healthcare that protects OEM profits and confounds customer strategies to save money”. Quoting Reinhardt, the author points out that unnecessary innovation is one of the industry’s biggest cost drivers.
In the medical technology complex, innovation becomes a big driver of hospital costs, as manufacturers target high-growth markets – like cardiology for intense innovation and short product lifecycles. It is time we demand a more economical and patient-care friendly concept of innovation in healthcare.
Click below to discover Innovative Health's Restrictive Technology Innovation infographic!