MedTech (R)Evolution in the Convergence Century: The Point of Person Laboratory

In this Convergence Century, evolutionary advances in various fields of technology are now converging in ways that are revolutionary. As chief strategy officer for AdvaMed, the leading trade association for medical technology innovators, my perspective is on (r)evolution in medtech.

Diagnostic tests are a cornerstone of modern medicine, providing critical insights into health and wellness that guide interventions and how we spend precious health care dollars. A growing and increasingly important component of diagnostics is point of care tests – tests that can be performed in a range of health care settings outside of large, sophisticated commercial and hospital laboratories because they are some combination of smaller, faster, and easier to use. But new diagnostic technologies that can be deployed as wearables and implantables will offer benefits on another order of magnitude.

Point of care diagnostics are the result of technology evolution but wearable and implantable diagnostics represent a technological revolution. While moving testing from the central laboratory into point of care settings enables improved patient care through faster results, moving testing onto and into the person -- the point of person laboratory -- enables new paradigms of care. There are multiple unique value drivers associated with point of person diagnostics – especially as we look at the future innovation curve, including convergence with advances in materials, miniaturization, power, wireless communication and digital medtech more broadly.

Implantable, minimally invasive, bio-compatible diagnostics will continuously evaluate health status, disease progression, healing, and therapy response. Their applications will abound not just in clinical and self-care but also in contributions to essential life sciences research. Self- and remote monitoring powered by on-board diagnostics will decrease the amount of time patients need to spend in traditional health care settings.

Paired with therapeutic technologies, wearable and implantable diagnostics will enable real-time and even autonomous or remotely controlled interventions. Even one-time diagnostic tests performed by wearables will dramatically reduce current frictions of time, costs, and inconvenience associated with testing as well as expand the universe of tests that can be performed entirely by the patient. Large and rich data sets generated by wearables and implantables will provide new insights into individual and population health and increasingly will be leveraged for clinical trials as well as generation of real-world evidence.

Ultimately, point of person diagnostic technologies will be one of the biggest drivers of blurring lines between consumers and patients, and between wellness and clinical care, empowering people to take more of their health care into their own hands.