How AI Solves Medical Device Support Challenges (Part 1)
Did you know that the global medical devices market size is projected to grow from $536.12 billion in 2023 to $799.67 billion by 2030, exhibiting a CAGR of 5.9%?1
The medical device industry is currently undergoing significant changes due to rapid technological advancements. With the introduction of innovative medical devices and the adoption of emerging technologies like wearable devices, the landscape of healthcare delivery is being reshaped.
As medical device manufacturers, you are at the forefront of this transformation, harnessing advanced technology to develop cutting-edge healthcare solutions. However, these changes have also brought forth a fresh set of challenges for your service and support teams.
Service and support challenges for medical device manufacturers
1. Rapid Introduction of New Technologies
Today, smaller wearable gadgets with advanced features like smartwatches and head-mounted displays (HMDs) have become quite common in healthcare. These devices require specialized technical support to ensure seamless operation, monitor various health parameters in real time, and facilitate medical training and remote consultations.
2. Maintenance of Miniature Medical Devices
The increase in smaller, more advanced medical gadgets has also introduced maintenance challenges. Portable devices designed for patient self-monitoring, such as those for monitoring blood sugar levels and heart rates, require specialized expertise to troubleshoot issues related to components like batteries, sensors, circuit boards, and connectivity.
3. Evolving Regulatory Landscape
The medical devices industry is heavily regulated in most countries, and regulatory requirements keep changing frequently. Staying updated with compliance standards and navigating the changing regulatory framework is essential for service teams. For example, changes in regulations related to quality control for medical devices, both pre-market and post-market, impact device manufacturers’ ability to gain market approval. So, service and support teams today need to understand compliance for a variety of devices, making their work difficult.
4. Supply Chain Complexities
Procuring necessary parts for medical device repairs can be challenging, particularly for older or specialized equipment. This logistical nightmare of sourcing specific components, like those needed for repairing critical medical devices, can lead to extended downtimes and affect healthcare service efficiency.
5. Skill Shortages in the Workforce
A noticeable gap exists in the availability of skilled technicians in the medical equipment repair field. The aging workforce and unavailability of new talent contribute to this challenge. Recruiting and retaining skilled professionals for medical device support and maintenance, who possess a unique blend of expertise including mechanical skills, IT literacy, and deep knowledge of medical technology, remains difficult.
6. Legacy Product Support
Continuing to provide support for legacy medical products while focusing on new releases is a balancing act for service and support teams. Neglecting legacy products can negatively impact the trust and reliability perceived by patients and healthcare providers. For instance, a large medical device manufacturer might have to allocate sales support and field service staff to promote a new product, leaving legacy products unsupported. Neglecting these profitable legacy products can create negative market sentiment.
7. Cybersecurity Challenges
Did you know that in 2023, 88 million people in the U.S. have been affected by data breaches of their personal health information, an increase of 60% as compared to 2022?2
The increasing acceptance of wearable medical devices and the growing use of connected medical equipment introduce significant cybersecurity challenges. Ensuring that these devices are protected against cyber threats is crucial to safeguarding patient data and maintaining the integrity of medical services. The healthcare sector has witnessed a surge in cybersecurity assaults, especially on smaller manufacturers that often lack appropriate measures in place to ensure data privacy and security.
8. Ensuring High Customer Satisfaction
With the rising complexity of medical devices and the increasing expectations of users, ensuring a prompt response to issues is challenging. Resolving problems accurately and rapidly can be challenging in a rapidly evolving technological landscape.
9. Patient Troubleshooting
Technological advancements in medical devices can sometimes leave patients struggling to operate these devices effectively. Adequate troubleshooting support is crucial to ensure seamless patient experiences and avoid potential health risks.
How AI is changing in support and service
AI in the healthcare market size worldwide is expected to reach $187.95 billion by 2030.3
Service and support functions will be at the forefront of this wave of adoption, deploying new capabilities to help service teams accelerate successful resolutions, work with maximum efficiency, and optimize customer experiences.
AI-driven diagnostic tools excel in swiftly and accurately analyzing complex issues to deliver: Quick issue identification, personalized interactions, self-service resolutions, responsive decision paths, known resolutions and prediction of parts to fix, insights from historical data, root cause prediction, and continuous learning.
AI helps preserve institutional knowledge within the medical devices industry, capturing and archiving the latest technologies, expert solutions, and best practices, thereby ensuring consistent quality and continuity of knowledge as experienced support technicians and nurses transition out of the workforce.
AI also facilitates the integration of cutting-edge technologies with legacy systems, ensuring seamless interoperability of technical, support, and customer data so that it can be accessed in a single pane by support teams.
How Bruviti can help
Bruviti’s domain specialized equipment service AI helps medical device manufacturers harness the power of AI in their operations to minimize downtime and improve operational efficiency. Using AI-driven insights and knowledge, Bruviti empowers help desk agents, support technicians, and clinical professionals with the necessary tools and resources to swiftly identify and address issues. By ensuring increased visibility into potential problems and offering actionable intelligence to resolve them, downtime is minimized, and customer satisfaction is maximized.
Bruviti AI is delivered as a service – embedded within your secure environment so your data stays in-house, LLM training and learning are proprietary to you, and the AI outputs accurate, consistent results you can trust to make decisions.
Conclusion
The medical devices industry faces several challenges ranging from technological complexity, changing regulations, skills and people shortages, and the need for new intelligent processes to meet rising customer expectations. These challenges require a strategic approach to service and support.
AI stands out as a transformative solution to the many challenges that medical device manufacturers face today.
Bruviti’s domain-specific equipment service AI (EQAI) is built to meet these challenges by resolving complex service issues faster and elevating customer experiences.
In the upcoming Part 2 of this blog series, we will discuss how Bruviti’s innovative AI solutions specifically cater to the needs of this industry, offering a competitive edge in an evolving market.