Med Tech Monday NEMIC

Episode Summary

This episode’s guest is Kate MacNamee. She is Ximedica’s director of design research.
Danielle and Kate dive deep into collecting data and advanced statistics within medical technologies and devices. Although this may sound big and complicated, Kate explains it wonderfully and compellingly. Kate also questions which department should manage and collect data. She reflects on the relevance of data in entrepreneurship and in building business. They close down the conversation turning to data and digital health. 
Data will always affect the design; that’s why saving it and properly managing it are essential for developing new medical devices and digital health. 

Today's Guest - Kate MacNamee

Kate is experienced in design research, business strategy, system thinking, and relationship management.
She is a compelling communicator that works with clients to provide insights they can act on. It’s her job to lead development teams to a position of success. Whether she’s developing an autoinjector, a surgical robot, or a portfolio pipeline, Kate advocates for designs shaped by science and empathy. She knows how to solve complex problems, provide people with focus and direction, and communicate easily with multidisciplinary teams.
Effective strategy requires equal parts detail awareness and system-level thought. Kate works within this balance to grant a prosperous future for products, businesses, and healthcare. She also offers deep expertise in product research and design methods following various regulatory bodies and standards for organizations, including FDA, DoD, and ISO/IEC.
Source

Key Take-Aways


All businesses are created by people and for people. 

“Data, for data's sake, is always a mistake.” - Kate MacNamee

P-hacking is collecting massive amounts of data. 

Always answer the “why” question first. 

Data is an R&D endeavor. 

Inequitable data is when the data collected comes from a single group of people. 

Equitable data opened up the fields of study and broadened our understanding.

Always take Human-centered design into account in an accelerator program.

Data is not a value proposition.



Resources

NEMIC | Ximedica | Kate's Email | Kate's LinkedIn | Sign up to help a community affected by the opioid crisis | “Start with Why,” book

We are joined by Alan Humphrey this week! 
As a mechanical and biomedical engineer, Alan has a lot of knowledge in the medical device industry. He shares his vision towards the challenges the development cycle has right now. He calls out also the impacts within the cycle. Alan also reflects on how the teams are addressing the development of new medical technologies. He also shares memories in hindsight of specific production processes and how teams should face up to problems that pop up.

If you know little things about the medical development cycle and wish to learn more, this episode is for you! 

Today's Guest - Alan Humphrey

Alan Humphrey has a double major in mechanical and biomedical engineering from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute. 
He has been working with Ximedica for almost 5 years now, changing roles from systems engineer to senior systems engineer. Prior to joining Ximedica’s team, he worked in Research and Development at DEKA and Rescale. 
He is also an Eagle Scout and a member of the Biomedical Engineering Honor Society. 

Key Take-Aways


One of the biggest challenges in the R&D sector is dealing with the unexpected.

The research side of R&D is always dealing with the unknown, trying things for the first time. 

There are three pillars to consider in development: medical feasibility, usability, finance, and marketability.  

R&D is a skill in and of itself. 

Just because the problem seems obvious, the solution and way to fix it is. 

Teams must develop a consistent protocol to address problems that pop up. 



Resources
NEMIC | Ximedica | Alan's Email | Alan's LinkedIn | Sign up to help a community affected by the opioid crisis

We're back and ready to talk about Med Tech innovation, commercialization, and startup development! In this episode, NEMIC’s Co-founder and Healthcare Innovator Aidan Petrie joins Ayan Bhandari, Senior Human-Centered Industrial Designer at Ximedica and CEO of his own startup Nuway to recap how we implemented NEMIC's Innovation Design Sprint Process at the COVID-19 Response Innovation Hackathons. Both guests teach the Business of Design course at RISD, where they focus on the intersection of Design and Business. Listen in as two incredibly talented designers speak to the importance of implementing a tried and true design process to invent ideas that move healthcare forward.
This amazing interview is packed with tons of insights on the innovation and design process, so please make sure to tune in!


Today's Guest
Aidan Petrie
Aidan is a healthcare innovator, strategist, and mentor. He is a founding Partner of NEMIC (New England Medical Innovation Center), a partner in Magpie Medtech Venture Fund, and a founding partner of Ximedica. He is also a Fellow of the Provost at RISD and a mentor and adviser to multiple startups. 
His passion for innovation and design has helped bring hundreds of products to market that range from simple drug compliance aids to wearable therapeutics, home monitoring products, and complex surgical systems.

Ayan Bhandari
Ayan is a Senior Human-Centered Industrial Designer at Ximedica. He is also the Co-Founder and CEO of Nuway and an Assistant Professor at Rhode Island School of Design. Since graduating from Virginia Tech in 2013, Ayan has honed his skills at various start-ups and corporations, culminating at Ximedica. 


Key Take-Aways

The capability of working simultaneously with a good process is what makes innovation sprints successful. 

Ideas come from more than just one place or one person. It comes from energizing the domain expertise that comes from the whole company. 

Fear is the misuse of your imagination. 

Create opportunities to use your talent. 

Medical innovation is difficult. It's not just about a good idea. It's not even just about good design. It's not even just about good ergonomics. There is a business and an infrastructure. There are material restrictions.

The medical health care industry is the largest industry in the country.

If you want to create something amazing, you have to put in so much work. 



Resources

NEMIC | Ximedica | Ayan's Email | Ayan's LinkedIn

Today's guest , Michael Pereira is the Chief Strategy and Technology Officer at one of the largest medical device developers in the US, Ximedica. Michael has over 25 years of product development and manufacturing experience and has been at Ximedica for over 20 years taking the company from 20 to over 200 employees. Michael focuses on supporting clients on how to best manage the right mix of business, technology and portfolio needs while understanding budgetary and time constraints of device development. On this episode, we discuss the opportunities for Med Tech startups and established companies to partner with independent product developers to best utilize their R&D budgets for higher returns on investment during the research phase of development. We also say goodbye to our co-host Tom Chiginski who we will miss dearly!

On this episode you will meet our new co-host, Maey Petrie and learn the backstories of how two young women in Providence, Rhode Island ended up hosting a Med Tech commercialization focused podcast and are supporting the growth of Southern New England's Med Tech ecosystem.
Also, we introduce two NEMIC Programs that just launched to support Med Tech entrepreneurs ( free to Rhode Islanders). Applications are now open for our Med Tech Leadership Program and Digital Health Accelerator. Listen to learn more.

Fernando Oliveira, Vice President of Strategic Development at Ximedica, joins up for a discussion around diagnostic devices. Fernando's deep background in the diagnostic industry makes for a robust conversation around the state of the industry pre-COVID-19, how patient and industry needs, due to the pandemic, have accelerated innovation in the space, and how business models have changed to meet commercialization needs. We close the episode with a forward-looking discussion around the future of the industry and up-and-coming diagnostic technologies.