Addressing Unmet Needs with Medical Devices

Highly Technical, Complex and Global

Prior research established unmet needs during a critical part of surgery, which often creates anxiety.

Our client’s potential solution would address this issue during the workflow to ensure a positive patient outcome.

Objectives

  • Gain feedback on the proposed design, features, and workflow.
  • Determine if this solution has enough user interest to continue development, even assuming increased cost.
  • Determine what level of control surgeons desire and how they would expect to interface with the solution.

Challenges

  • Fielding – the team replicated a “mock” OR set-up including patient bed which enabled surgeons participating in this study to see the features in real time. We worked with facilities in three countries to enable this set-up.
  • Remote viewing – dual camera feed that followed the action to capture surgeons’ reactions and the research set up simultaneously.
  • Recruiting – challenging in the US, and even more difficult in other countries. Qualified surgeons commuted to major cities from adjacent markets.
  • Deeper insights – Moderators knowledgeable of the surgery posed questions in a way that allowed surgeons to feel comfortable admitting there are times when they feel uneasy.

Methodology

30+ in person one on one interviews in 4 large cities in the US, Europe, and Asia.

Professional moderators conducted the interviews using a simultaneous translator in non-English speaking countries.

Recruited surgeons with a mix of specialties, years in practice, hospital settings, and types of equipment used, and who met procedure quotas.

Asked partners to “be creative” and “query their panels” to help determine best locations and find surgeons who would qualify/attend in person.

  • Tapped into our experience of how to move the equipment for the research to each of the three countries. Recreated the set up with consistency in each market.
  • Sourced partners to translate materials to allow surgeons to interact in their local languages.
  • Crafted discussion guides to help assess how the proposed design addressed unmet needs and level of interest.

RESULTS

Deeper understanding of the workflow – which led to a reframing of the ultimate measure of success for this initiative.

  • Summary synthesized feedback and suggestions to improve the proposed solution and documented clear direction on what elements were valued vs. not.
  • Recommended priorities for near-term vs. longer-term next steps.