When medical technology companies present new technologies to hospitals and health systems, the focus has historically been clinical outcomes.
As health systems transition to value-based care, the medtech industry is adapting as well. We are moving to considering all stakeholders equally: hospitals/health systems, payers, patients and physicians. As an industry where growth is dependent on new advancements and addressing unmet medical needs, medtech companies are now scrutinizing new innovations through a comprehensive value framework that ensures new medical devices deliver both clinical and economic outcomes – key to supporting health system needs.
Given the emerging value-based paradigm for health systems, the medtech industry association, AdvaMed, launched an initiative to develop an approach to value assessment for medical technology companies. AdvaMed’s framework for defining value in the new healthcare ecosystem was co-developed with Deloitte Consulting LLP. This framework goes beyond traditional health economics and outcomes reporting and clinical efficacy metrics to assess the value that medical technologies may contribute to improving patient care and experience, economic outcomes and the overall health of populations. Applying this value framework demonstrates how our latest advancements drive value in the care delivery system for the full range of stakeholders, as well as ensures that health systems and medtech companies are more aligned today in our mutual ongoing ability to best serve physicians and their patients.
In assessing the value of a novel medical technology or next-generation product, questions that medtech companies are now addressing in advance include:
• What is the patient need for the technology?
• What are the ways the technology creates value vs. alternatives?
• How does the value vary for different patient populations?
• How should different short-term and long-term time frames be considered in the value assessment?
• What types of analyses/scenarios will ensure stakeholders understand the value of the technology?
These questions and their answers should resonate for health systems in applying their own technology assessment framework.
This value framework uses four broad value drivers to ensure the assessment is relevant to the array of stakeholders – patients, physicians, hospitals and insurers – who may evaluate and measure value differently:
• The clinical impact: Clinical efficacy and effectiveness, safety and tolerability, and quality of life
• The non-clinical patient impact: Patients’ experience and patients’ economics
• The care delivery economics: Quality of care economics and care efficiency
• The societal impact: Population health and workforce productivity
In a world where outcomes drive incomes, medtech companies have a growing understanding of how to broaden our data sets in demonstrating a technology’s value for the healthcare system. Safety and efficacy data are no longer enough. We are conducting studies that track patient outcomes over time and show the effect on total cost of care.
To demonstrate the application of this framework, AdvaMed partnered with member companies. Rotation Medical was the first to fully apply the framework to our product, a Bioinductive Implant as a new approach to treating rotator cuff disease, in the AdvaMed Medtech Value Assessment Framework in Practice use case. We developed a variety of evidence types to support our value assessment, and the results of many of these studies have already been put through the rigor of a peer-review process. We have successfully demonstrated clinical, non-clinical and societal impact. For example, operating room times can be reduced by over an hour per procedure than traditional rotator cuff repair. We have also seen reduced rehab visits, less need for opioids and an overall faster recovery for the patient. All are potential cost savings attributable to use of our implant.
Medical device companies are moving toward demonstrating greater value to health systems. By showing the full breadth of expected impacts offered by medical technologies, we show how our innovations contribute to improving patient care and experience, economic outcomes and the overall health of populations. As two important industries in our complex healthcare world, health systems and medtech companies are more aligned today in our mutual ongoing ability to best serve physicians and their patients.
Martha Shadan, Chief Executive Officer of Rotation Medical and Board Member of AdvaMed
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