Physicians vs Software, Physics, Technology and Applications Specialists

In the last 10 years the medical devices world has had an incredible technological evolution. The technology complexity is such that to work with a MRI not only the technicians and the physicians need to learn how to interpret the new delivered images but also some physics and technology involved in it.

Ideally, the main work of a physician is not physics or technology or even software, their main goal is to keep up their knowledge in the medical field. The issue is that nowadays the medical and the technological  world are so interconnected that you can no longer separate them to be just concentrated in the medical part. 

To read and to interpret an exam is no longer possible by looking at printed images and studying them with the naked eye, this is ancient history. The medical imaging technology evolution brought with it different acquisition techniques and a giant number of acquired images and data. In a way it's no longer humanly possible to study them all without the help of a good software to synthesize them. 

Never before was it possible to address the diseases like it is today. Not only the physical characterization is possible but also the physiological behavior in multiple imaging modalities can be accessed. To extract all the information from the acquired images it is imperative to have a very good post-processing software that helps you to extract all the relevant information like tumor volume and extension, recist calculation, tumors metabolism, etc.

No matter how good your machine is, if your software can not keep up, the beautiful and very well acquired images, will probably, not be of much use. From the side of the medical institutions the financial effort to buy not only a machine but then the software can, in some cases, be huge. To buy a software that is useful to characterize a disease that appears once a year is not profitable. However having this software or all the medical software on the market doesn't mean that you will be able to characterize it either.

The companies where the machines and software are being bought need to have a strong customer support department. In this department there are specialized people to teach the customer the correct use of their products. The application specialist role has as the main duty to teach the new owners and medical staff how to work with a particular medical machine or software. An application specialist is in a way the master user of the companies systems. The applications specialist are of vital help not only for the customers but also for the vendor company.

Teaching and learning a new software or new technology is not always straightforward. The learning curve is different for each person and the application specialist needs to adapt not only his pace but also his teaching strategy. If somehow the application specialist has not succeeded, not only will the software be a waste of money but even dangerous in the case that a physician tries to diagnose based on wrong premises.

Medical devices companies are reducing their profit marge but also the training offers are being reduce. The damage that this is being caused to the medical devices market is not easy to see. For the vendor companies it is not only a question of image but also a question of sales and marketing.

If the system is not like plug and play and you do not have a person to help you how to use it, this company has definitely a bad service and the customers progress and learning curve will be huge and I can even add that they will swear a few times at your machine, your software, all the people of the company and regret their purchase. On top of all, it will be spread that your product is not user friendly, impossible to use, that it has a lot of defects and software bugs because since the first approach was not guided mistakes will happen. The image of the vendor company is affected and you can forget future business with this customer. Another example is when a trial software is installed but an application specialist was not provided to give the necessary support. I can assure you, without any doubt, that this is a waste of money. There is no sales person, no matter how good he/she is, that can change a bad product's first impression and usually people have this tendency to first discover by their own the faults before the benefits. 

For the owner of the new system, not having an easy access to an application specialist means to postpone the profit that can be achieved with the new machine. Also the long term trainings need to be assured. Employee rotation and mobility are a reality and the people that first started and were trained may not be there one year later. Simultaneously the application specialists are a vector that spread the knowledge between customers and they follow the guidelines of the latest's recommendation of the medical/technological field.

To take full advantage from a high end machine and software there is an inherent necessity of continuous training. Since the installed base of machines for each vendor is continuously increasing the necessity of application specialist can not be less, in fact it needs to follow the market growth. The medical facilities, when buying a medical device need to ensure that their machines will be used to their full potential at all times and for that they should contemplate continuous training programs and when they buy a machine they should request this service and see this reflected in their maintenance contracts.

Training is never the bust in a business but a boom...