Inclination for innovation

Critical Care holds third annual Innovator’s Symposium

This past September, the MedSurg-Critical Care (CC) specialty hosted their third annual Innovator’s Symposium at Park 48. Several district managers from the Americas and Asia-Pacific (APAC) joined together for this seminar that focused on contributing to the product development process for Cook.

CC’s district managers were asked to present their own inventions to the “shark tank” group of reviewers, which included a rigorous review from global product managers, business development managers, and members of the MedSurg research team.

In preparation for the symposium, the district managers went through a nine-month “Innovation Course,” which prepared them for clinical problem solving and idea creation, and the regulatory, legal, engineering, and marketing requirements that would be needed to make their product dream a reality.

The goals

There were three goals for the district managers participating in the Innovator’s Symposium:

• Enhance their effectiveness as a district manager
• Become a greater asset to Cook
• Learn about how to create a new product

John Wallace, district manager, led the 2018 team through the rigors of the program. As a member of the first innovation team, John said he finds the opportunity especially rewarding in his own day-to-day business.

“We’re a team of district managers with a natural curiosity about product innovation, and we’re willing to commit ourselves to learning more about the process and how we can support it with our insights from the field and relationships with clinicians,” John said.

Product pitches

Monica McNeely, a senior district manager, was one of four recruits for the 2018 Innovation team. She came into the program with extensive clinical and business knowledge gained from more than a decade at Cook.

One of Monica’s product pitches was for a feeding tube. This tube would be intended to provide short-term enteral access, or access to the intestines, for delivery of nutrition and/or medications to the small bowel. She proposed a concept that would help to prevent a patient’s stomach contents from regurgitating after feeding.

She said she appreciated the novel approach the innovation team took all year, and she hopes to use the lessons she’s learned in the pursuit of inventing her own medical devices.

“We were taught to consider the disease process through the lens of development, not just the product,” Monica said.

District Manager, Meghann Aberle proposed enhancements to the Wayne Pneumothorax Catheter. This catheter is used for the relief of various types of a pneumothorax, or collapsed lung.

Customer needs

Dan Kaiser, global vice president of Research & Development, discussed the importance of identifying unmet customer needs in new product development and how the symposium participants are ideally situated to bring those ideas forward.

“Being armed with the knowledge of how to evaluate new ideas for Cook creates a more robust and insightful discussion with customers that can happen on a daily basis,” Dan said. “These conversations not only focus on making existing products better, but can lead to better outcomes for patients in the future.”

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Written by Frank Potucek, Critical Care senior district manager, and Tori Lawhorn, Critical Care written content specialist.