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| Lance Murphey/Bloomberg News A researcher at the device maker Medtronic in Memphis examining a spinal system. | | ||||
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An article entitled "Costs Surge for Medical Devices, but Benefits Are Opaque" made the front page of the business section of the New York Times this Thursday. I have been meaning to blog about it for a while, but decided to today. Medicare pays millions for costly devices such as implantable defibrillators, artificial joints, and other implants. The US lacks one key thing though: a registry for these devices. Other countries have medical device databases, "to provide both doctors and patients with more data about how competing products differ. In such a database, or a registry, information about a product and the surgical technique used by a doctor is recorded at the time of an implant. And then by tracking whether and when the patients return for a replacement procedure, or experience other problems, registries can show which producers’ models are failing faster than others," (Meier, 2009). Databases would make for more competition.
Medical device companies would not gain anything if there way a registry. Patients would gain better results through the use of the "best" devices. Also implantable defibrillators have battery lives of around 5 years. The article seems to conclude that these devices could be made to have longer battery lives, but companies sell more defibrillators when they have to be replaced every five years. The cell phone industry runs a similar scheme with short battery lives and planned upgrades. Should life saving devices be programmed to fail intentionally? Patients are more than consumers. Operations to replace implantable defibrillators can lead to death. The business of medical devices in the US will soon change.
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