Microsoft & Stryker's IoT Solution for Patient Experience
Brought to you by WBR Insights
In this article series, we've already discussed how Industry 4.0 technology is transforming the healthcare industry. In particular, we've looked at the way in which the Internet of Things is enabling medical devices to better serve both practitioners and patients while providing field service with the tools it needs to adopt predictive maintenance business models.
Data lies at the core of nearly all Industry 4.0 technology. Digital devices naturally produce huge amounts of information which can be used by brands to achieve sophisticated and actionable insights regarding the people they serve. From developing detailed client personas to recognizing patterns of use, data is arguably the most powerful tool in the Industry 4.0 toolbox.
As a leading developer and manufacturer of high-tech medical devices, Stryker recognizes the power data has to transform the patient experience - with a little help from field service providers.
Stryker
Stryker has teamed up with Microsoft to create a global platform which securely connects thousands of the brand's medical devices installed around the world into a single global network designed to collect, store, analyze, and share real-time performance and usage data.
"When the company started exploring the opportunity of using in-field device data to meet customer demands, it already had an extensive global portfolio of smart medical devices producing huge volumes of real-time data from the field," said Program Director at Stryker, Dan Martinson. "What we needed was a way to consume that data and transform it into actionable insights. It didn't take us long to see that cloud computing and IoT could help us find the answers we were seeking."
Like many manufacturers of contemporary medical devices, Stryker is already using Internet of Things technology to better serve its clients. Using connected sensors to empower predictive maintenance is rapidly becoming the status quo for field service providers as they allow issues to be detected before they cause components to fail entirely.
However, Stryker wanted to take this concept one step further and use its connected network of thousands of medical devices to get closer to patients themselves - improving their healthcare experience, clinical outcomes, and even saving lives, while simultaneously making the development and ongoing support and improvement of its devices more effective and efficient than ever before.
Patient Centricity
The data capabilities of Stryker's new Microsoft-powered platform are being used to constantly reassess and improve the designs of its medical devices.
Specifically, they are allowing those at Stryker responsible for product development to focus on the features which have the most significant impact on patient care and the patient experience, as well as device performance. Device manufacturers can often feel disconnected from the patients they ultimately serve. However, by using the data gathered by their connected products, brands such as Stryker can begin to bridge this chasm to the benefit of all parties involved.
"We put a tremendous amount of engineering effort into designing features that our customers can use to advance patient care," said Martinson. "In real time, we can understand the frequency and duration of use for those features in the field. This data not only informs where we focus our time and effort from an engineering perspective, but also highlights areas where we can partner with our customers on how best to use our products while delivering care."
The next step of this process will be for Stryker to more deeply connect its real-time device data with clinical records. Stryker already has an infrastructure in place which connects these two data streams, but the new platform put in place in partnership with Microsoft will allow the manufacturer to deepen the connection between them and, for the first time, make them available to customers.
Stryker is putting its faith in the power of the consolidation and delivery of a more unified data stream to change the way it partners with its customers and significantly increase their ability to improve patient outcomes through a deeper understanding of the effectiveness of medical device-based treatments.
"We believe data-driven insights are transformative for healthcare providers, because they can directly affect patient well-being," Martinson concluded. "Our IoT solutions today are focused on making our products work better by improving device reliability and performance. By integrating device data with clinical data in the future, we will be able to help make healthcare better for everyone as we continue working to serve our customers and fulfill our mission."
Final Thoughts
IoT technology has the power to not only improve field service maintenance provision but also allow medical device manufacturers to get closer to the patient through deep data-based insights.
You can hear Stryker's IS Director and Business Partner, Greg McCormick, speak at Field Service Medical 2020, taking place in February at the Rancho Bernardo Inn, San Diego, CA.
Download the agenda today for more information and insights.