Patients-eye view of medical device industry: favorable, with reservations

Source: ECRI Institute

The medical device industry enjoys a favorable reputation among a majority of patient groups around the world, although perceptions of its performance in particular areas of activity add up to a mixed bag.

That’s according to a new global survey by London-based research organization PatientView. The firm queried 300 patient groups from 42 countries in February and March, gathering opinions on not only the industry as a whole but also the reputations of 18 individual multinational companies.

The study measured performance based on such indicators as the quality of the information the company provides to patients, the company’s record of transparency with external healthcare stakeholders and the company’s record on patient safety.

Among the survey’s majority-favorable findings on the medical device industry:

• 64 percent of responding patient groups said the industry is good or excellent at being innovative;

• 57 percent said the industry is good or excellent at ensuring patient safety; and
• 52 percent rated the industry’s overall corporate reputation as good or excellent  (PatientView noted that the equivalent figure for the pharmaceutical industry is 40 percent).

Meanwhile, indications of majority-unfavorable opinions included:

• 22 percent said the medical device industry is good or excellent at adopting fair pricing practices;
• 30 percent said the industry is good or excellent at being transparent with external healthcare stakeholders; and
• 32 percent said the industry is good or excellent at practicing ethical marketing.

As for the top-ranking companies, the respondent groups rated Coloplast, a Danish manufacturer of urology and wound-care products, highest among the 18. Medtronic came in second, followed by Smith & Nephew, Roche, Abbott and Johnson & Johnson.

PatientView did not specify how it defined “patient groups” for the purposes of the survey.

“The views and perspectives that patients and their representative groups hold about the medical device industry—and about specific companies within that industry—have an important bearing on the companies’ profitability,” the firm pointed out in an online promotion of the commercially available survey report. “Such views may be entirely at odds [with] the opinions held by other healthcare stakeholders—not least since patients have different aspirations to health professionals, policymakers and regulators.”