The pandemic pushed medical technology trends and developments into overdrive in 2020. Physicians are now seeing 50 to 175 times the number of patients via telemedicine, and the vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 was developed, tested and implemented in less than one year.
Medical technology processes were also upended with lockdown orders, social distancing and a pivot to the global focus on Covid-19. We can expect to see changes from last year continue to develop in 2021 to improve our practices in a soon-to-be post-pandemic world.
Clinical Trials
Many clinical trials screeched to a halt in spring 2020 when labs and medical facilities closed due to Covid-related health and safety concerns. In order to not lose years’ worth of data and progress, clinical trial investigators and Institutional Review Boards needed to weigh how they could progress trials during the pandemic. Per guidance from the FDA, “Central to any decision should be ensuring that the safety of clinical trial participants can be maintained.”
The best way clinical trials could move forward during Covid-19 depended greatly on the specific circumstances of a trial, including the nature of the investigational product. Proving once again that necessity is the mother of invention, trials at risk of getting stuck in neutral were able to incorporate remote and virtual components into screening, participation and monitoring. This opened a new pathway of conducting trials that will carry forward to drive efficiency, expand participation, and effectively keep more patients in the trial safely. Like telemedicine, the ability to reduce person-to-person contact and still conduct quality clinical studies meant the coronavirus didn’t claim new healthcare innovations as victims.
We will continue to see adjustments and improvements to virtual components of clinical trials in 2021. Not only can this allow for more participants in more studies, but it can also drive safety and efficiency across the board.
Diagnosis & Treatment
While clinical trials will continue to be a vital source of knowledge in treating diseases, we have seen during Covid that treatment without fully understanding the diagnosis inhibits healthcare. For example, a patient may be diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2, but the diagnosis alone doesn’t help treat “long-hauler” Covid patients. The CDC estimates that more than one-third of patients whose COVID infection has cleared are still experiencing symptoms.
Therapies are important, but they’re not the only answer. Proper diagnoses open the door to improve standards of care and ultimately better treat illnesses. As Clayton Christensen pointed out in his groundbreaking work, The Innovator’s Prescription, it is virtually impossible to get the treatment right until you get the diagnosis right. So, how do we get better diagnoses? Medtech innovations and AI development are paving the way to quantify limitations healthcare providers currently experience. We don’t always know what we don’t know, and as doctors and nurses continue to collaborate with innovators around pain points they see in their everyday practice, diagnosing illnesses can improve and lead to better treatments.
The Importance of Nurses
Few healthcare professionals understand the day-to-day challenges of caring for patients like nurses. If anyone could have anticipated the difficulties in PPE availability, staffing shortages or burnout with Covid-19, it was nurses. They will always be critical on the frontlines of healthcare, but nurses will play an even more vital role in healthcare advancements by serving in more prominent roles on MedTech advisory boards.
Whereas a physician may know the mechanics of a drug and its adverse effects or the inner-workings of a newly developed measurement device, nurses are the ones who deal with the adverse effects of said drug or run the device, all while listening to a patient’s story and learning how the experience is affecting them directly. With this regular insight from nurses throughout development processes, a product’s viability and practical usage by those who will use it can be considered early and often. Nurses should be present at every level where new innovations are being discussed. We should anticipate seeing more of this in 2021 to avoid issues that blindsided some medical communities during the pandemic.
2020 was a year of change and acceleration by necessity — curbing the effects of a deadly pandemic and keeping our communities safe. We can only hope 2021 will be less volatile and allow the healthcare industry to not only refine the processes that were implemented in a hurry during the pandemic, but the insights to improve healthcare for all.
Photo: Feodora Chiosea, Getty Images
