Industry News
MassMEDIC Appoints New Board Chairman
MassMEDIC has a new board chairman. The Boston, Mass.-based trade group recently appointed Rousch Life Sciences President Tom Taylor to lead its board of directors.
Before joining Roush last year, Taylor served as president of Nypro Life Sciences, a division of Clinton, Mass.-based plastics manufacturer Nypro Inc. Taylor also has worked as vice president of the OEM healthcare business unit at Millipore Corp., a Billerica, Mass.-based company that develops tools, technologies and services used in bioscience research and biopharmaceutical manufacturing.
“Tom’s experience and success in the medtech industry make him an outstanding choice to lead MassMEDIC,” President Thomas J. Sommer said. “The medical device sector faces some serious challenges in the coming year and we look forward to his leadership and counsel.”
In addition to his role as a medtech company executive, Taylor has served as an advocate for the life sciences industry in Massachusetts. In 2007, he accompanied Gov. Deval Patrick on a life sciences and clean energy trade mission to China. Taylor expects his role as an advocate to intensify over the next few months as the federal government focuses on revamping the nation’s healthcare system and improving the medical device approval process. He also hopes to provide more exposure for MassMEDIC and work with state officials to foster a good working environment for small device firms.
“I think the focus is to do what I can to provide more exposure for the council, because there’s a lot that the council does for medical device companies in our region that isn’t known,” Taylor told the Massachusetts Medical Devices Journal. “At the end of the day, we’re an advocate; we play a role with the federal and state governments. We try to provide information and briefings. It’s not just about networking.
One thing we need to think about in Massachusetts is to continue developing an environment for smaller companies. We should look at how other states support these smaller companies. There’s a need to continue to focus on that—those small companies do a lot of hiring and innovating and they need help.”
One of the best ways to foster the growth of any company—large or small—is by teaching them the importance of innovation and the dangers of complacency, Taylor noted. The auto industry fell victim to complacency and nearly went bankrupt because of it.
“You have to continue to focus on innovation and be as lean and mean as possible,” said Taylor, who grew up in Grand Blank, Mich. “Companies can never sit back and get comfortable that they can sustain leadership positions. You have to continue to look at ways to evolve as a company and a product line. There was a lot of complacency in the auto industry. They didn't pay attention, and we know what happened because of that. The lesson for big U.S. medical companies is that those same competitive threats that hurt the American auto industry will occur in this industry, and they can't be fat and happy.”
The Massachusetts Medical Device Industry Council (MassMEDIC) was created in 1996 by medical device executives interested in promoting the interests of the state’s medical technology sector.
Roush Life Sciences, a division of Livonia, Mich.-based Roush Enterprises Inc., designs and develops laboratory research products and medical devices.
Software Improves Contract Manufacturing Services at KMC
Managing contract manufacturing services is now as easy as the click of a mouse at KMC Systems Inc.
The Merrimack, N.H.-based firm uses software designed specifically for medical device applications to hasten the startup of new projects and improve quality control. It also uses the software to manage documentation for traceability and regulatory compliance, and help customers access their project information.
“Our customers bet their brands on us,” said Bill St. Onge, KMC’s manufacturing director. “With our enhanced manufacturing execution system, they can outsource critical manufacturing projects with complete confidence. Our integrated system helps customers get to market quicker and provides a high level of quality compliance.”
KMC customizes the software to meet the unique requirements of each customer, providing step-by-step visual instructions to the manufacturing team. Company officials claim the picture-based system reduces assembly and test time and allows the company to rapidly start new projects or meet sudden increases in demand.
The software features an automated serial number assignment tool and barcode functionality that facilitates configuration management and ensures the production of high-quality instruments, according to KMC. During test procedures, certain criteria must be completed before the software will allow assemblers to move to subsequent steps. The computer-based process provides greater assurance of quality because most paper-based systems allow manufacturing to continue when mistakes or errors are made.
The system facilitates rapid communication between assemblers, engineers and customers to optimize production and streamline the change management workflow. The electronic signature, according to KMC executives, eliminates paper-based sign-offs, which allows for traceability and can delay time to market.
“A manufacturing execution system can impart a number of benefits on the manufacturing process for complex medical devices and systems, including efficiency and high-quality output,” St. Onge noted. “However, it is almost impossible for medical OEMs and startups to maintain such a system in-house. Our software provides our customers with a distinct advantage through state-of-the-art manufacturing technology.”
ISO CERTIFICATIONS:
• EPTAM Plastics, a manufacturer of precision plastic components, has received ISO 13485:2003 certification. The Northfield, N.H.-based firm recently built a 5,000-square-foot medical manufacturing center that features a clean environment for the machining and control of medical grade polymers. EPTAM’s president said the ISO certification enables the company to meet the needs of its customers: “Completing the ISO 13485:2003 certification allows us to offer our clients and, in turn their clients, the highest quality in machined plastic medical components,” President Jeff Hollinger said.
• ISO 13485:2003 certification has been awarded to Inteprod LLC, a contract manufacturer based in Eagleville, Pa. The five-year-old company was named 2009 Manufacturer of the Year by the Greater Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce, receiving honors for its growth, manufacturing concepts, employee training and community service. Rick T. Smethers, Inteprod’s founder and president, said the certification validates his firm’s commitment to high quality standards.
No Jitters in This Twitter: Tweeting from the O.R.
In this fast-paced, hyper-connected interactive world of ours, there is nothing worth not mentioning. The rise of social networking sites such as Facebook and Twitter have given people an inflated sense of importance about the general minutia of everyday life.
There are no secrets in cyberspace, no subject that is too racy or repulsive to talk about (or in the case of Twitter, to tweet about). Even medical procedures have become an acceptable topic of on-line discussion.
Earlier this year, doctors at a Wisconsin hospital jumped on the Twitter bandwagon and produced a live “Twitter-cast” of a bilateral knee replacement. Often referred to as a type of instant blog service where members post brief musings about their daily lives (in 140 characters or less), Twitter has grown exponentially in popularity over the last year. The seemingly simple interface belies an intricate network of more than 6 million accounts from worldwide users.
In recent months, Twitter has become popular with prominent figures in entertainment, politics and sports. Actor and television/movie producer Ashton Kutcher updates his account about 20 times a day with replies to friends or links to articles and other sites of interest. Television talk show queen Oprah Winfrey tweeted for the first time after interviewing its founders, and legendary actress Elizabeth Taylor used her account from her hospital bed to ask a friend to get her dog past hospital security.
The Twittered knee replacement occurred in mid-April at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center in Milwaukee, Wis. It attracted more than 2,200 followers and was shared more than 75 times through “re-tweets” to other online social networks. During the surgery, doctors and other caregivers posted more than 250 tweets, and they received 180 replies with questions and comments.
The number of people tracking the procedure through their Twitter account more than doubled, going from 930 the week before the surgery to 2,240 during the operation itself. While observers called the Twitter-cast a “natural outgrowth” of the social networking medial revolution, healthcare officials believe such broadcasts will help educate patients and alleviate fears about medical procedures.
“This was an educational experience not only for the thousands of audience members, but for Aurora as well,” said Jeff Smith, vice president of medical affairs at Aurora St. Luke’s Medical Center. “This event helped us to better identify the information people need to alleviate fears, dispel myths, and learn about a potential procedure.”
Christopher Parks, co-founder of the Web site changehealth.com, agrees. “Doing this removes a real communication barrier. It helps make something scary much more comprehendable,” he told CNN. “It brings us closer together and makes us more engaged.”
Whether it engages patients or helps alleviate fears, healthcare industry experts predict that more doctors (and patients) will share the blow-by-blow of medical procedures on sites such as Twitter and Facebook.
Alleviating patient fears is just one of the motivating factors behind two Twitters of surgical procedures at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, Mich. Last fall, a man tweeted his own varicose vein removal surgery as it was occurring (he was under local anesthesia), and in January, doctors tweeted the removal of a cancerous tumor from a man’s kidney. The lead surgeon in the tumor removal procedure said he wanted to twitter the operation to let prospective patients know that a tumor can be removed without sacrificing the entire kidney.