EE Times Virtual Conference: Medical Systems Design

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First came the computing revolution. Then the communications revolution. Today we are on the leading edge of a revolution in medical systems and services that holds the potential to be even more transformative than the technological revolution that came before.

That's the message from Doug Rasor, the keynote presenter at this year's Medical System Design Virtual Conference and a 30-year veteran of the semiconductor and medical technology markets. Currently, Rasor advises early stage technology and medical device firms, including Incube Labs, a Menlo Park, CA based medical device incubator.

Rasor sets the stage by reviewing the advances in semiconductor technology that drove developments in the personal computer and cell phone industries over the past three decades, both which have seen orders-of-magnitude improvements in price, functionality and size. Yet for a variety of reasons, the form factor, price, and performance of medical equipment used to monitor, manage, and treat patients has not kept pace.

Driven largely by economic and demographic factors, the tide is turning and innovations in medical devices and connectivity are starting to accelerate. An aging population and exploding healthcare costs are just two factors contributing to the growth opportunities in the medical device market. US healthcare costs, for example, account for 16% of GDP and are projected to top 3 trillion by 2012, up from $2 trillion in 2007. The opportunities are significant to lower these costs with productivity-enhancing and cost-saving devices and services in the hospital, physician offices, and the home.

Rasor provides examples of advances being made in a variety of areas, including imaging equipment and consumer home healthcare devices that are moving down the smaller-faster- cheaper technology curve. And as medical wireless networks become more sophisticated, the information transmitted from these devices will enable healthcare professionals to manage patient health more cost effectively.

Yet unlike the PC and cell phone markets, argues Rasor, medical device technology draws on more than just Moore's Law for the development of innovative products. Advances in implantable devices and prosthetics, for example, combine multiple disciplines, including electronics, robotics, and neuroscience, to enable sight and mobility through direct nerve-to-silicon connections. Developments like these will change our lives in yet unimaginable ways. Semiconductors of the future, Rasor speculates, will include not only digital and analog leads but direct connections to nerves.

Another example Rasor details is a device that addresses obesity, which is one of the most significant public health issues of out time. The World Health Organization projects that 1 in 2 Americans will be obese within 20 years, up from 1 in 3 today. Rasor profiles a gastric pacemaker developed by Menlo Park, Ca-based IntraPace Inc. The implantable gastric pacemaker system treats obesity by providing stimulation to the stomach when food or drink is detected. The stimulation is intended to make a person feel full before the stomach is full and helps reduce the amount of food that's eaten.

Rasor's keynote address sets the stage for deeper technical discussions of these topics during the panel discussions and scheduled chat sessions which are part of the Virtual Medical System Design Conference. One of the three panels that starts right after the keynote addresses the challenges and opportunities ahead for developing robust and secure hospital networks that allow for the real-time access to patient information. Another session looks at the developments in the home healthcare device market and the third addresses the challenges of speeding product development of medical devices time to market.



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