Medtronic and Mindray are shifting their focus to supporting clinicians and patients
By Pete Mercer
In a recent episode of the ASC Insights Series podcast hosted by Outcomes Rocket, host Saul Marquez spoke with Blake Tatum, VP of US Commercial for Medtronic Acute Care and Monitoring, and Mike Lessick, VP of Sales and Marketing, Patient Monitoring and Life Support at Mindray North America, about the new partnership between Medtronic and Mindray.
This new collaboration is an extension of an already existing one focused on patient monitoring technology in hospitals, shifting that focus to ambulatory surgery centers. According to a news release, this relationship is designed to “simplify access and integration of advanced monitoring solutions” from both Medtronic and Mindray, supporting clinicians and patients in inpatient and outpatient settings throughout the country.
The mission behind the shift
There’s been a big shift in healthcare in recent years, where patients are no longer relying on hospitals for every surgical procedure. Ambulatory surgery centers offer a lot of the same procedures at a lower price point for the patient, while also offering a better overall experience.
“We realized there was a shift from hospital-based procedures moving out to the ambulatory surgery center space, and that was becoming increasingly common,” Lessick said. “This transition represents a structural change in how healthcare is delivered. A lot of it is driven by economic pressures, procedural innovations, and patient preference.”
In the traditional hospital setting, recovery from procedures can keep patients in the hospital for a couple of days, which can take up valuable real estate in the hospital while also potentially exposing them to other hospital-related illnesses or infections. In the ambulatory setting, patients often go home the same day as their procedure.
“Patients want to go home sooner and recover at home. We designed a project to integrate Medtronic advanced technologies into our bedside monitors to expand access to high-level monitoring in the ASC space,” Lessick said.
With this partnership, Medtronic and Mindray are looking to further support ASC partners in their mission to improve patient outcomes while hitting the same standards of care that the patient might receive in a hospital. Medtronic will have access to Mindray’s established ASC distribution network, which widens the net for Medtronic products to go to the ASCs that need them.
How this benefits ASCs
For ASCs that are looking to maintain standards of care and improve efficiency, how does partnering with Medtronic and Mindray benefit them? Lessick hopes that it will eliminate complexity across the board.
“Each center is going to have their own economics that they’ll experience, depending on how much they maximize the partnership. The more you maximize it, the more economies of scale you’re going to get. Purchasing becomes streamlined. Operational deployment, maintenance, training, everything becomes standardized and potentially universal across a large surgery center division.”
They’re looking to improve patient safety and workflow efficiency by integrating Medtronic technology pieces like Nellcor SpO2, Microstream Capnography, BIS brain monitoring, and Invos tissue oximetry directly into Mindray’s patient monitoring platforms as they get installed in the ASC facility. According to Tatum, this allows those ASCs to open and operate as though they were in the hospital, creating the opportunity to watch higher complexity patients and procedures at the same level of care as a high acuity setting would.
“What we’re working on with Mindray gives the clinicians in the ASC a complete picture of oxygenation, ventilation, sedation depth, and organ perfusion,” Tatum said. “It leads to earlier interventions, and through the partnership with Mindray, it allows us to integrate all that into a single system that Mindray has already designed for ASC workflow.”
Not only does this help to improve patient care, but it also reduces the cognitive strain on caregivers by working from a centralized viewing integration. “It’s completely accessible and portable from bedside to bedside if we need it. It improves efficiency. You want the patient to be in and out as fast as possible at the highest care level they’re seeking. Viewing a single screen increases response time and allows everybody to deliver a higher level of care like you would find in a hospital,” Lessick said.
Keeping things simple for ambulatory care
The most recent significant shift in ambulatory care is the introduction of more high-acuity, complex procedures like total joint replacements, spinal surgeries and even cardiology procedures.
Introducing more complex procedures means that any new technology or interface that can simplify these processes is a very welcome addition to the ASC. With this partnership, Medtronic and Mindray are hoping to dispel any misconceptions about the complexity involved in operating an ASC.
Lessick said, “Surgery centers keep evolving, and they’re becoming more complex as orthopedic and bariatric procedures make their way into this space. The complexity can be overwhelming. Their staffing needs are high, but they don’t typically have the ability to bring on a hospital-size staff. This feels overwhelming for them. Ultimately, what this does is allow a purpose-built solution with integration to make things easier to acquire.”
According to Tatum, this technology is designed to be a modular, plug-in-and-play system that can be used by any ASC, anywhere in the facility.
“It’s not about managing multiple systems – it’s one platform and you add the technologies as needed. We make this much more cost-effective, more simple to use, and a better solution for an ASC environment,” he said.