Collaboration across medical device development teams is always a good idea, but it may be even more important with connected medical devices.

“New technologies and shifting healthcare workflows are driving the pace of medtech devices faster than ever before,” Philip Remedios, principal, CFO, and director of design and development, BlackHӓgen Design, told MD+DI. “It is desirable to be an early provider of these new devices, so in order to reduce time-to-market, device companies need to move toward higher levels of concurrent collaboration among disparate development teams involved in traditional embedded design, application software, and other connected technologies.”

Such fast-paced medtech development “drives revised strategies for product definitions and new iterations to reduce scope, risk, and ultimately, time,” he explained.

Remedios will explore the potential of such strategies in the MD&M West conference session, "Outsprint Your Competition to Market Launch by Streamlining Your Collaboration Roadmap," held in Room 210AB April 12 from 9:30 – 10:15 a.m.

“Attendees will learn how to establish stakeholder strategy alignment early on with collaboration among executive, technical, marketing, manufacturing, sales, and service teams,” Remedios said. “Paralleling upfront tasks like product road-mapping and market access strategy, speed to first product launch can be dramatically accelerated. Considering best practices, attendees will also learn how to plan for rapid development cycles by frontloading iterative prototype development and usability testing to validate design specifications and direction.”

Remedios will then moderate a panel discussion, Connected Device Design: Using Best Practices During the Product Development Process, shortly after in 208AB on April 12 from 10:30 – 11:15 a.m. He will be joined by panelists Tom Ulrich, Ph.D. and Chief Scientist, Tandem Diabetes Care; Jeff Gross, Chief Technology Officer, Canary Medical; and Patrick Bangert, Vice President of AI, Samsung, SDSA.

The group will discuss how to overcome the complexities of designing a connected medical device, including hardware and software design that incorporate robust cloud architecture, wireless protocols, machine learning, artificial intelligence, and cybersecurity.

“The safety and efficacy of a connected device is driven by the design integrity across a network of adjacent products and processes in a wider ecosystem,” Remedios explained. Attendees of the panel discussion “will learn development best practices that maximize the stability of interoperative technologies and the regulatory landscape, including privacy and use-safety challenges associated with widely varying environmental and operating conditions.” Examples will be presented across screening/diagnostics, disease management, and digital therapeutics, he added.