Designing medical technology for resilience: integrating health economics and human factors approaches

Simone Borsci* (Corresponding Author), Ijeoma Uchegbu, Peter Buckle, Zhifang Ni, Simon Walne, George B. Hanna

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticleAcademicpeer-review

37 Citations (Scopus)
1 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Introduction: The slow adoption of innovation into healthcare calls into question the manner of evidence generation for medical technology. This paper identifies potential reasons for this including a lack of attention to human factors, poor evaluation of economic benefits, lack of understanding of the existing healthcare system and a failure to recognise the need to generate resilient products. Areas covered: Recognising a cross-disciplinary need to enhance evidence generation early in a technology’s life cycle, the present paper proposes a new approach that integrates human factors and health economic evaluation as part of a wider systems approach to the design of technology. This approach (Human and Economic Resilience Design for Medical Technology or HERD MedTech) supports early stages of product development and is based on the recent experiences of the National Institute for Health Research London Diagnostic Evidence Co-operative in the UK. Expert commentary: HERD MedTech i) proposes a shift from design for usability to design for resilience, ii) aspires to reduce the need for service adaptation to technological constraints iii) ensures value of innovation at the time of product development, and iv) aims to stimulate discussion around the integration of pre- and post-market methods of assessment of medical technology.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)15-26
Number of pages12
JournalExpert review of medical devices
Volume15
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2 Jan 2018
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • UT-Hybrid-D
  • Clinical usefulness
  • Health economics
  • Health technology assessment
  • Healthcare technology development
  • Healthcare technology value proposition
  • Human factors
  • Resilience
  • Risks
  • Usability
  • Clinical pathway mapping

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Designing medical technology for resilience: integrating health economics and human factors approaches'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this