If in May 2008 a patient needs to decide on how to treat GERD, what will be the treatment of choice? Will the patient go on the internet and look up state-of-the-art surgical treatment options? Will this accelerate adaptation of new minimally invasive techniques and will the physician community be responding in a pro-active attitude towards a future full with new hybrid and endoluminal treatment options?
We are in the infancy of endotherapy for many standard interventions in body organs and vessels. Medical device engineers will succeed in providing tools for dependable, reasonably durable, and repeatable procedures for the endotherapy and hybrid surgical assisted therapies. In order to obtain third-party payer recognition and reimbursement for new devices and techniques, true needs for appropriate products in a sustainable health care marketplace will prevail, and the production efficiency will be truly needed in a cost-escalating health care system. However, only the new procedure and promising technology will be sustainable in the future and will probably come with reimbursement at a lower level than current widespread medical technologies.
There is an ongoing rebirth of interest in the public, captivated by the hope for no scar surgery. In the future, less and less patients that normally would be excluded from invasive therapies will show patience. Instead they will request an immediate fix, with no scars and side effects. Over time this practice may gradually replace the watchful waiting and/or medical therapies. Just like the laparoscopic revolution in the beginning of the Nineties, a market force of informed patients combined with dedicated efforts in innovation will deliver again a new system. And it will be a step ahead of current treatments. New collaboration networks among society members are being formed as a source of information and support. Incubators focus on support and nurturing of new ideas. Physician inventors need the support of dedicated industry experts on their pathway to becoming medical device entrepreneurs. Such groups provide the dialogue and discussion about the innovation and the market need particularly with regard to interventional procedures including natural orifice transluminal endoscopic surgery (NOTES)…
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