The medical industry is a 10 trillion-dollar market globally while one of the largest markets, the USA is ranked by the World Health Organization at 37th in the world for quality of medical care out of 191-member states. While per capita, we in the USA are #1 in spending per capita in international dollars. Not only do we spend more, but we also spend over twice what the second-place spender is! In other words, you can get better but you can’t pay more. Think of it this way in our business if our customers discovered they were paying over 2 times market price and our supplier ranking were #37 we would not be selling to them very long yet, here in the US we don’t have much choice. When Insurance companies and the government are involved with something what could possibly go wrong? Or better said, would you expect anything else other than what we have could be the result? When a former CEO at Intel was diagnosed with Cancer several years ago he attempted to reform the medical system when his contact with the bureaucracy caused him to put his mind to work to reform the system and use methodologies we use in the electronics industry applied to the medical system. It was a good effort, only too little too late with too little mass to impact the massive inefficient bureaucracy. Since then, the electronics industry has grown and matured. Additionally, we have an aging baby boomer population in the US and globally a similar situation is occurring – we are living longer. The medical market is a target for Amazon, Google, TSMC, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Samsung, and others. Medical is one of the few drivers large enough to move the ecosystems of Samsung, Apple, Amazon and TSMC. Samsung, Amazon, and Apple have massive resources and secure ecosystems and TSMC is a powerhouse in MEMS and IC fabrication. Conversely, these companies are possibly the only ones large enough to pull off disruption of the inertia of medical system and break down the numerous barriers and take on the incumbents the US medical system has erected over the decades. It would be even easier in countries outside of the US with sane and cost-effective medical delivery systems with fewer barriers. This will lead to next generations of SOC’s medical electronics, advanced sensors, wearables, apps for portable electronics with more medical – preventative apps and innovative body interface devices such as advanced pacemakers – perhaps wireless, colloquial implants, artificial retinas advance connectivity, IoT devices, low power wearables, and power electronics. I believe if these forces can be aligned in this market the benefit for us all will be tremendous and give truly viable and much more affordable medical system. Our industry are experts at faster, better, cheaper, more rugged and reliable systems and innovation. Medical electronics has seen tremendous advancements over the years but what could happen when the gorillas of our industry align their resources, IP, brain power and the like to create systems far better and cost-effective than professional expensive systems. In other words what if an app or wearable you can buy as a consumer product gives you better results that you could feed to your doctor continuously without coming in for an appointment as often for the march of endless “tests” what if the “tests” were fed to your doctors office for review on demand and alerted any anomalies via AI software that learns what’s normal and what’s not. The possibilities are endless, and the market is ripe for disruption by technology experts.
