Introduction
Developments in the field of medical technology are a highly promising branch of science. Nonetheless, to implement these developments, it is necessary to optimize the interaction of all process participants. If developers, investors, medical practitioners, and healthcare receivers meet and work out standard rules and regulations, they will all benefit from it. This paper aims to analyze the article about challenges faced by developers and propose relevant solutions.
Overcoming Hierarchy
In the first part, the author notes that the main challenge is the companies’ unwillingness to establish legal relations with developers in a way beneficial to both parties. Barad (2019) emphasizes that medical institutions usually offer two options for legal collaboration. The first is signing a patent agreement, which does not give a guarantee of financial compensation for developers. The second option is participation in the share capital of companies created by the medical institution.
Nonetheless, the new startup ecosystem in the field of medical technologies is the solution. The author believes that for this, investors, developers, and caregivers need to meet and develop new practices for cooperation. It seems logical to propose using the Lean and Six Sigma models to simplify the formation of new regulations (McLaughlin & Olson, 2017). It will help to identify and eliminate ‘dead zones’ and stimulate the interaction between startup developers and medical institutions, both in the field of legal agreements and joint work processes.
Dealing with Misunderstanding
Further, in the second part, the author draws attention to misunderstandings between developers of startups in the field of medical technology and representatives of public medical institutions. He notices that medical institutions do not fully understand the difficulties in implementing developments in the field of medical technology (Barad, 2019). Medical staff confuses medical technology with biotechnology or pharmaceutics – an area that has the support of laboratories (Barad, 2019).
Healthcare managers can solve this problem by applying a balanced scorecard method to reset the primary goals of the medical centers and deal with innovations more effectively (McLaughlin & Olson, 2017). In this regard, the author proposes Stanford’s StartX accelerator program, whose participants take the initiative in interacting with startups and focus on what they can offer to developers, as an outstanding example to follow.
Mastering Disbalance
The scientist also notes that investors are not interested in startups, which cooperate with medical organizations, because they may not bring money for up to two years. These startups take a longer time for implementation due to a large number of care receivers and are associated with additional bureaucratic procedures (Barad, 2019). The author blames medical institutions, since, in his opinion, developers act in their best interests, and often become victims of long, complicated processes that kill startups. What is even more depressing, sometimes medical institutions break the contracts without refunding and for no apparent reason (Barad, 2019). Nonetheless, proper governmental standards and regulations could save startups and improve the whole caregiving process.
The United States is not the only country facing the challenges listed above. Indian developers also meet an unintentional, but tangible resistance of the healthcare system (Motha et al., 2017). Scientists mention “inadequate funding, risks, lack of regulations, unsustainable business models as the main contributors to failure” (Motha et al., 2017, p. 4175). The issue is global and vital, and its solution will require cooperation at all levels.
Conclusion
Thus, an analysis of an article by Justine Barad about the challenges startup developers are currently facing was analyzed. The author drew attention to legal relations between developers and medical institutions, emphasized that developers are often exposed to financial risks, and noted that investors are reluctant to put money in healthcare projects. All these problems can be solved if developers, medical practitioners, and investors work out the standards and regulations of interaction and create a favorable startup ecosystem.
References
Barad, J. (2019). Healthcare startups struggle to navigate a business world that’s set up for them to fail. TechCrunch. Web.
McLaughlin, D. B., & Olson, J. R. (2017). Healthcare operations management (3rd ed.). Health Administration Press.
Motha, L., Nalini, R., Alamelu, R., Amudha, R., & Badrinath, V. (2017). Health startups in India – A progression towards development. Research Journal of Pharmacy and Technology, 10(12), 4175-4177.