Medical device and hardware companies rarely excel when it comes to the less physical side of the business: the software and the data.
It’s often left to other companies with more expertise in these areas to step in and fill the gaps.
This is a major shortcoming and weakness, especially in the times we now live in where data is becoming more important than the physical devices that help generate it.
Last week I made a short post about the leadership opportunities represented by FHIR and in particular by FHIR Implementation Guides.
I didn’t say it at the time, but that post was aimed at the medical device and hardware companies I just mentioned. Companies who excel on the physical side but have ceded ownership of the data to other organizations.
This often happens out of inertia and a perceived inability to play in this space.
I wrote that post not for developers or analysts but for business leaders: CTOs, CEOs and heads of marketing and sales.
Here’s the post
Public FHIR Implementation Guides are thin on the ground.
I’m talking about domain specific guides of the size and scope of mCode and CardX, but for different areas of healthcare.
We all know there are huge gaps to be filled here. But what’s not obvious is the opportunities these gaps present to private businesses.
When it comes to healthcare data there is a leadership vacuum across so many domains.
Domains that don’t fall under the remit or focus of one of the existing FHIR Accelerators and that don’t have a champion in the private sector.
They languish, with no work being in public to properly define profiles and ValueSets. Each business or organization left to build their own data models with little commonality between them.
So where’s the opportunity?
Data is feeding the AI world. This is clear to everyone in healthcare, in medtech, in pharma.
Every business is worried about this. Worried that they’ll be left behind as competitors move faster and carve out positions for themselves as leaders in data and AI.
What they’re all missing is the leadership opportunity presented by FHIR and by FHIR Implementation Guides.
There is a real opportunity for these businesses – leaders in their own fields – to step up and lead from the data side as well.
If you’re a medtech company who excels and leads the world in hardware, now is the time to look to the data.
Same for pharma, digital health, pathology, and so on…
Take a leadership role in helping define and deliver Implementation Guides that encompass your area of expertise.
Position yourselves as data leaders by genuinely leading and delivering on that leadership.
Do it collaboratively and do it in public.
There is no reason for medical device companies not to step into the data realm. Many of them already dominate their own markets on the hardware side.
And while they may have ceded the software side to others, all or most of the data still often flows through their devices – available and accessible.
If you’re a MedTech leader, don’t dismiss the opportunity presented by FHIR Implementation Guides.
If your company does not take advantage of it, chances are one of your competitors will.
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