The home has been the center of care delivery for years with diagnostic options such as colon cancer screening with Cologuard, hormone screens from EverlyWell, and personal health tracking on Apple Watches. While these technologies are available and being used successfully, current thinking suggests they are not being used as efficiently or effectively as possible.

At AdvaMed’s The MedTech Conference in Toronto in October 2024, a panel addressed “The Future of Health at Home: Reimagining Connected Care.” Throughout the conversation, the experienced panelists referenced the need for medical device companies to recognize their users not only as patients with a medical condition or as recovering from a procedure, but as individuals in real-world situations with complicated living situations and constraints that could result in the slow adoption of connected devices.

Earlier this year, McKinsey examined several aspects of the connected health and wearables sectors. Global data from 2022 shows healthcare lagging behind other sectors like grocery and banking with only an approximately 55% adoption rate, whereas banking and utilities are seeing an approximately 90% adoption of digital tools (Table 1).¹ Are the healthcare tools lagging behind the other sectors due to the timing of market entry, user benefit, usability, or other factors? 

It turns out the barrier is not trust. A high level of trust exists between individuals and the healthcare sector, almost identical to the trust individuals have in financial services (Table 2). With the availability of connected devices and digital tools, as well as the earned trust that privacy and data will be protected, marketing strategists might make the leap to say the dots have not been fully connected between the capability of the technologies and the needs of the user.

To help provide some context, Greg Lange, president and CEO at Simbex, draws on more than 20 years of designing and developing medical products to reflect on this space. He suggests the “new wearable and connected devices need to meet the patient where they are and be easy to use with obvious value to the patient. Products such as the OPOS1 System, which tracks the use of a patient’s prosthesis or orthosis over time, [have] seen market adoption not just because it is a connected device, but also because of the ease of use and awareness that it provides to both the patient and the clinician to stay up to date on usage and identify and address issues when they arise.” 

Over the past two to three years, the number of FDA approvals and clearances of software as a medical device (SaMD) exceeded the cumulative total for the previous 25 years (Table 3) and the numbers keep growing, especially in orthopedics.² According to Lange, “We have seen an uptick in the number of wearable and connected devices for orthopedic applications coming through our development teams. The ones that are seeing early success are those with real-world visibility and use cases adapted for a variety of home situations.”

MedTech Strategies Perspective

I believe we are starting to see a transition from “We can collect real-world patient data” to “Patients will only collect the data when we understand their journey map and the value the data enables to the clinician and the patient.” We will eventually get to a point where data collection is a part of our normal routine in understanding our health. 

For connected care and wearable device companies to make a difference in the lives of their users and experience the market adoption they are seeking, they need to recognize this transition is happening. If they are only thinking about the data collection, they are missing out on an opportunity for accelerated adoption, more robust datasets, and better analytics due to the seamless integration into the everyday experience of the years. 

Overall, completing real-world research through the hands of motivated users in their homes will give you the data needed to ensure a more successful launch and favorable product adoption curve.

References

¹ tinyurl.com/odt241101

² tinyurl.com/odt241102

Ilsa Webeck has more than 30 years of work experience assessing commercial and market viability in the medtech space. After founding MedTech Strategies in 2014, she has worked with a wide range of organizations focused on assessing commercial fit and identifying product and service value propositions, as well as uncovering customer/user needs to understand a path to commercial success. Her past experiences include group product director at J&J’s DePuy Spine, leading the strategic marketing and upstream marketing team, associate director for global commercial strategy in the MS Franchise at Biogen Idec, and current director of commercial strategy at Simbex. For more information, visit www.medtechstrategiesllc.com.