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What is Medical Technology?

Medical technology encompasses a wide range of health care products and, in one form or another, is used to diagnose, monitor or treat every disease or condition that affects humans. These innovative technologies are improving the quality of health care delivered and patient outcomes through earlier diagnosis, less invasive treatment options and reductions in hospital stays and rehabilitation times.

Medical technology innovations are fundamentally transforming the health care landscape, providing new solutions to address chronic diseases conditions and revolutionize the way treatments are administered. Miniature robots capable of performing complex spinal surgery, noninvasive treatment of brain tumors with a focused beam of gamma radiation, and light-activated drugs that target diseased cells are examples of breakthrough technologies that have recently made the leap from medical fantasy to medical reality.

Future medical technology breakthroughs will build from the incredible progress made in other scientific and technical areas, harnessing the increasing power and sophistication of computers, advancements in communications capabilities, and the information learned from deciphering the human genome. Future innovations in medical technology will reflect several broad trends:

  • Miniaturization of medical devices will allow for more targeted delivery of therapies.
  • Replacement organs and tissue engineering advances will provide radical new options for addressing the most serious disease conditions.
  • Molecular and gene-based diagnostics will detect diseases earlier in its progression, improving patient outcomes and lowering treatment costs.

Health information technology innovations will allow critical medical data to be processed and transmitted rapidly over great distances, saving both patients and physicians time and speeding delivery of treatment.

Delivering advanced medical technologies into the hands of patients, physicians and other end users is a continual and complex process. The incremental nature of medical technology innovation and the wide range of device types pose unique challenges for innovators, unlike those faced by the pharmaceutical or biologics sectors.

The medical technology innovation process is interactive and involves significant collaboration with physicians and other end users. Real-world experiences with a product, both positive and negative, are critical to the design of the next generation of a technology.

-September 14, 2004