Patient and clinician needs are constantly evolving, but so is medical device development. Like countless other industries, healthcare embraces digital transformation, advanced technologies and a significant shift toward connected care.
With digital technology, data analytics and automation represent the future of healthcare. Many companies grapple with managing vast amounts of data generated by medical devices and how to integrate AI processes into the healthcare ecosystem. How can these technologies balance the need for insights while reducing complexity for clinicians and patients?
As the connected medical device ecosystem expands, opportunities for the use of device data and artificial intelligence to simplify workflows, enhance decision-making and ultimately improve patient care will also increase.
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Expert Insights on AI in Medical Device Development & Connected Care
In two LinkedIn Live sessions, medical device leaders from Cardinal Peak and our parent company FPT Software joined industry experts to share insights into how data will fuel the AI revolution in medical device development and connected healthcare.
Unveiling MedTech Innovations: AI’s Role in Clinical Technology & Medical Device Development
eViRa Health hosted a LinkedIn Live on the future of AI in MedTech. eVira’s Irma Rastegayeva and Evan Kirstel led a discussion on groundbreaking medical device innovations and actionable insights featuring Pravin Tiwari, EVP from FPT Software, Patricia Black, director of healthcare solutions at Cardinal Peak, and clinician innovator Dr. Gopal Chopra.
The session starts with FPT’s impressive project experience and strides in AI and healthcare, then shares how Cardinal Peak’s expertise in medical device development seamlessly integrates with FPT’s services. Throughout, Dr. Chopra offers an invaluable clinical perspective on innovative medical technologies. Dr. Chopra’s clinical insights coupled with Cardinal Peak’s medical device development expertise provides a complete product solution.
View the recording to dive deeper into our discussion on connectivity, MedTech decision support, AI applications and tools to enhance clinical workflows.
Advancing Digital Transformation in MedTech: Device Connectivity & AI
Device connectivity and data are required for medical device companies to keep pace in our data-driven world of AI and optimized workflows. However, only about 15% of medical devices are connected to the cloud today.
MedTech industry leaders from Cardinal Peak and FPT share our customers’ real-world journeys, challenges and solutions on the path to digital transformation.
Whether connecting medical devices to the cloud for remote device management, clinical workflow optimization, or clinical decision support systems using AI, our experts share the impact of digitalization on our customers’ medical device development and ways to shape your own MedTech products.
Check out the recorded live session.
Challenges in Connected Care & AI-Driven Medical Device Development
Despite the promise of connected care, significant challenges that can stall progress and leave critical gaps in healthcare delivery plague medical device development:
- Access: Many healthcare facilities, especially in underserved areas, struggle to integrate connected care solutions into their workflows. This access gap means the benefits of real-time data and predictive analytics still remain out of reach for many who need it most.
- Quality: Failure to meet patient safety standards and maintain them in diverse clinical environments can have consequences for patients and their effective treatment.
- Data and its use: Many companies collect data from the device but are not able to act on it. They don’t understand what problems they are trying to solve or how relevant the data is. There is currently a gap between the clinician and medical device manufacturers in how to make the data more relevant to their day-to-day experience.
- Data integration and management: Integrating medical devices into existing platforms and workflows requires knowledge of healthcare systems and the clinical environment. Managing vast amounts of medical data and transforming that data into meaningful outcomes will help reduce the cognitive load on clinicians.
- Regulatory compliance: The FDA requirements for device manufacturer product development are wide reaching yet specific in terms of product design, documentation and testing. Deep experience is required to develop products that are safe and to submit them to the FDA successfully.
These challenges — access, quality, data, and compliance — underscore the need for a thoughtful, strategic approach to connected care. Partnering with companies that understand digital transformation and how innovation fits within the clinical workflow helps organizations reach their full potential.
How Digital Transformation Reshapes Connected Care Workflows with AI
Healthcare providers can increasingly rely on digital data-driven insights to help manage conditions to provide better patient outcomes.
With the growing integration of connected medical devices, device manufacturers can provide clinicians with access to a large amount of patient data. This data can provide earlier interventions, allowing clinicians to deliver preventative, personalized care. Medical device manufacturers are working to close the gap between the data they collect and the data that clinicians need to improve care and clinical workflows.
Connecting life science instrumentation can significantly improve instrument efficiency, increase processing power, and facilitate a broad variety of algorithms in the cloud – for fast and wide-ranging results. Consider the example of a cytology instrument used in a laboratory setting.
The processing power and storage capacity of disconnected life science instruments has been limited by the memory and MIPs of the instrument. In the case of our client, the system provides image processing and analytics of cells at the microscopic level with a bounded set of memory and MIPs on a PC-based device. Initially, clinicians would begin the detailed analysis and algorithm execution at the end of the day to come in the following morning to collect results.
Moving algorithm execution to the cloud facilitates the ability to execute large language learning models (LLMs) and other AI algorithms in real time, providing faster and more detailed results. Digitalization of healthcare and moving execution to the cloud accelerates analysis, increases storage capacity and provides a platform for advanced AI applications.
For more insight into shaping MedTech innovation through digital transformation, check out FPT’s article which includes some market analysis for the medical devices.
AI’s Growing Impact on Connected Care & Medical Device Innovation
Patients that are monitored remotely are benefited by the fact that clinicians will be alerted to changes in their health that can be addressed quickly. Leveraging AI in connected care provides deeper actionable results. Learn more about our custom AI solutions for healthcare.
Connected care includes information sharing across the healthcare system, across electronic medical records (EMR), the physician’s office, the outpatient clinic and the hospital. Connectivity facilitates AI with:
- Decision assistance: AI LLMs enhance clinical decision-making by analyzing real-time patient data from connected medical devices. This enables personalized treatment plans, more accurate prediction of patient outcomes and proactive alerts. LLMs further aid clinicians by efficiently synthesizing vast amounts of medical literature, to provide diagnostic and treatment support.
- Real-time remote patient monitoring (RPM): Connected devices continuously collect patient health data outside of traditional clinical settings, enabling healthcare providers to proactively identify potential issues and intervene. Leveraging AI further enhances RPM by analyzing vast datasets to reveal deeper, actionable insights. Examples of this are continuous glucose monitors and patient monitoring systems including wearables. Learn more in our case study on wearable patient monitoring device development.
- Personalized medicine: AI can help tailor treatments to individual patients by analyzing their genetic information, lifestyle data and medical history from various sources. An example of this is hotspotting, which identifies high-needs patients, providing personalized care to improve engagement, health outcomes and reduce costs.
The digital transformation of healthcare improves patient outcomes and the efficiency of connected care delivery. Pushing the boundaries of possibilities in medical technology to enable a truly end-to-end connected care ecosystem moves us toward a future where clinician engagement and patient care is more personalized, proactive and effective than ever.
Cardinal Peak remains at the forefront of digital transformation in connected care. We build customizable solutions that include device connectivity. We leverage platforms like AWS IoT Core and Espressif RainMaker to create comprehensive solutions that meet each client’s specific connected care needs.
Is your organization ready to take the next step in connected care innovation? Connect with Cardinal Peak to discuss how we can help you bring your medical devices, wearables and connected care solutions to market.