One of the biggest challenges— the highly manual, disjointed and duplicative processes surrounding the use of implantable medical devices (IMD) in the operating room (OR).

A surgeon is driven on how many cases can you do in one day. They want to be able to do as many cases as they can. Many surgeons who use medical devices in their procedures expect a technical field representative paid by device manufacturer to be present during the procedure, because they understand that the rep’s special product expertise might enhance the outcome of a case.

Product usage is most often reconciled by the rep and the clinical staff. A current trend is for each supplier to provide a different tool to streamline the IMD process. In many hospital scenarios, the nursing teams are using multiple vendor tools for IMD tracking and reconciliation, which requires more training and lowers efficiency.

As a highly manual process, IMD management is currently marked by lost or expired inventory and a lack of analytics.  Consulting firms familiar with the current situation may be able to act as a change agent and retool the value analysis process for physician preference items.