Clinical competence in the development of health care technology: Consideration of the customer concept

One of the cornerstones of developing successful health care technology businesses is acquiring and developing market-related skills such as competence in the medical field of application and understanding of health care systems in general. This study relates to the issue of how health care technology manufacturers can develop these skills and integrate this competence in their product development processes. The expected changes in health care system are what makes the issue pressing right now. The health care systems in Western countries face the problem of producing more services at lower costs. To meet the challenge several approaches need to be simultaneously adopted such as development of health care structures and systems, development of care processes, implementation of new technology and shifting more resources away from the inpatient sector towards primary and community care. In a period of fundamental industry transformation, as in health care at the moment, the actors need to reconfigure their business systems. The shaping of new technological solutions needs to be fitted into the shaping of new structures, care processes and operating procedures. In the situation of industry transformation developing new technologies is inseparable from the shaping of markets. Creating a 'social space' for the new technological solutions is a necessity. In the very core of the process there is the necessity to include a wide range of interests and perspectives into product development processes. This study focuses on three issues; how manufactures acquire information about user needs, how the customer concept is transformed over time and what are the current change pressures on the customer concept. The issues are approached by case strategy. Developments in the case company are mainly based on the analysis of interview data. The report argues that in the present situation of turbulent change successful company management entails understanding the key constituencies of the company's market, playing an active part in the creation of new operating concepts, and the ability to ingegrate the company's competences and customer needs in a novel way to suit the future operating system.