Know your Medtech!
In 1650, a German Jesuit named Athanasius Kircher invented the ear trumpet, a funnel-shaped device to collect sound waves and direct them into the ears of nearly deaf patients. Medical technology has come a long way since then, and today medtech devices include robots...
What Is Driving Medical Device Sales In 2013
When Medtronic manufactured the first pacemakers more than 50 years ago, physicians did not know what they were. The idea of implanting a man-made device in a patient’s chest sounded crazy. It was up to sales reps to teach doctors how pacemakers worked and how they...
How Universities Work With The Healthcare Industry
The first hospital in the United States owned and operated by a university was opened in a former professor’s house on the central campus of the University of Michigan in 1869. Surgical operations were performed in the upper lecture room until an operating room was...
Obamacare and the Health Services Industry
When the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, backers promised it would provide more affordable, accessible and comprehensive health care and insurance coverage for all Americans, including 30 million people without health insurance. However, when this complex law...
Medical Device Technologies Shaping Our World Today
In 1958, Minneapolis engineer Earl Bakken produced the first wearable external pacemaker. Since that time, biomedical engineering has contributed to human welfare by alleviating pain, restoring health and extending life. Advanced medical devices have improved the...
How Big Is The Health Services Industry ?
The health services industry touches the lives of nearly everyone in the United States. It encompasses hospital care, physician, dental, and clinical services, prescriptions drugs, medical devices, and nursing home and home health care. These sectors generate...
Therapeutic Technologies Are Changing The Way We Recover
In 2011, an IBM supercomputer named Watson defeated two reigning champions on the TV quiz show Jeopardy, winning the first prize of $1 million. Watson has a 15-terabyte data bank of human knowledge—more than 15 times Wikipedia—and can process the equivalent of a...
Implications of the 2.3% Device Tax Associated with Obamacare
When the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, was signed into law in 2010, it contained a 2.3% excise tax on gross sales of medical devices. The tax applies to a wide range of products, from bedpans to the most advanced heart devices, as well as companies, from emerging...
Where Are The Jobs Now In Healthcare?
Between 1960 and 2013, the average life expectancy for men and women in the United States rose from 70 to nearly 79 years. During that same period, the general population of the United States grew older with the baby boomers. Add 32 million Americans gaining access to...