As a forward-thinking medical device developer, you want to stay ahead of the competition and always be the pioneer of new developments. It is therefore smart to look at how you can use gamification to sell medical devices. In this article, we discuss the challenges medical companies face and how gamification can help.
Companies that sell medical devices are also called “medical device companies” or “MedTech companies”. For convenience, we’ll call them “MedTech” in this article. They help the medical industry by developing advanced technological devices. They deal with problems in healthcare, come up with an innovative solution and start developing the device. The equipment is on some occasions intended to make the work of doctors and surgeons faster or easier. Alternatively, the innovation may be intended to improve patient rehabilitation, for example.
While MedTech companies are important to the medical industry, they are struggling today. Some of the challenges that MedTech companies face:
- High production costs: the cost of research, highly skilled labour, machines, and other elements add quite fast and make medical device production an expensive business. , For instance, Covid-19 has impacted the distribution chain of parts for medical devices. While that is a temporary problem, demand for medical devices continues to rise.
- Counterfeiting and imitations: it is common today for a new, innovative medical device to be counterfeited within a few months. First, this is frustrating for the innovator who has put a lot of money and time into the device. Second, the imitations do not give the same results as the original device, and this dents the image damage the original maker.
- Difficulty meeting sales targets: MedTech companies sometimes have to deal with complex products with long sales cycles. This unavoidably put pressure on sales teams to hit targets.
Digitization can help address these challenges. How does it work?
Digitization in the medical industry: gamification
The term digitization in this context means converting physical data to digital data. Think of scanning a written document or publishing a physical book online. Today, it is about incorporating technological innovations to improve processes.
There are numerous forms of digitization in healthcare. Think about remote monitoring of patients. Gamification is one of the digitalization forms. In recent years, its application has shown positive results. For example, the use of games for patient rehabilitation.
Examples of gamification techniques are the application of badges, leaderboards, or for example points. These gaming principles stimulate human emotions by increasing endorphins in the body.
Gamification to sell more medical devices
Gamification can be used by MedTech companies as a sales tool to strengthen their value proposition to target clients. Suppose a medical company sells a complex surgical robot, then a gamification solution can be included as a training tool for end-users. The surgeons have to train with the device on a weekly or even daily basis. A gamified training tool is always fun and engaging. This means surgeons are motivated to train longer than usual. In effect, there is a margin of error reduction during surgery and surgeons work faster and efficiently with the device. A gamified training tool for a medical device brings several advantages:
- Training with gamification is fun: points, badges, and leaderboards encourage users to train more often and for longer periods, thus training them faster and better.
- Staff can train flexibly: a gamification product, unlike a simulator , for example, can be played anywhere.
- Reduced training costs: Developing and maintaining medical simulators are expensive. Gamification solutions can be used to check this ordeal. They are comparatively easy to develop and cheaper to maintain, with similar training effects as simulators.
When a MedTech company offers a gamification solution to customers and demonstrates the positive results, sales automatically increase. With gamification, MedTech companies offer holistic solutions to their clients and eventually stand out from the competition.
Want to know more about gamification for MedTech companies? Please contact Tim Laning for a free consultation:
