Sunday, January 31, 2010

Technology Life, Economic Life, and Workflow Life

“What color do you want?” This is the first question I am asked when I go car shopping. (Yes, it does irritate me.) While I see that is an important decision for most people, do people really buy a car for it’s color?

Wouldn’t it be more effective to ask – “Why are you shopping for a car?” This should be the question of every vendor pushing a medical device to a hospital. "Why are you purchasing this product? Why now? What initatives are you trying to solve with this purchase?"

If you look at purchase decisions. Most will fall into one of two timelines or life-spans: Product Life and Technology Life. Product Life is the underlying practical reason for the purchase, and Technology life is the technological enhancements we "can't live without". We believe there is a third area for medical devices that can leverage existing platforms, blend their usage with new product platforms making transitions easier – we call it Workflow Ability.

Technology Life = 5-6 years vs Product Life = 10-12 years

Workflow Ability can extend the Technology Life 3-5 years balancing out the difference between Technology and Product Life. It allows for proper transition between platforms.

So how do we bridge the gap between the technological enhancements of new products and the apparent short comings of a previous investment?
Many hospitals will simply make a Capital Investment and change to the new platform, but is that really necessary? In these economic times is that really a practical decision?
We believe that the first two decision points (product and technology), while important in making a transitional question are lacking in their ability to allow the hospital to make a long-term transitional change. We believe that Workflow coupled with unifying technology can really increase the lifespan of existing platforms thus leverage the hospitals original investment.
This is a LONG post so I am breaking it up into sections.
Stay tuned for more on:
Product Life
Technology Life
Workflow Ability with Unifying Technology

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Thanks for Posting on Clinical Transformation!

Kourtney Govro
kgovro@sphere3consulting.com