Year 2007 marks the 30th year of this publication's analysis of U.S. and international med-tech, with Biomedical Business & Technology having issues of our predecessor newsletter beginning from 1983.
To highlight what has or has not changed in this industry, we here provide excerpts of news items from these earlier publications.
September 1983 —
"The U.S. outpatient surgery market is in excess of $5 bln in services, equipment and supplies. Data from the American Hospital Association and the U.S. Department of Health indicate about 27 mln surgical procedures for 42 hospital admissions in 1983. Studies concluded that from 40-60% of all surgical procedures could be done on an outpatient basis. Insurances companies and HHS are actively promoting that idea. . . .
The following estimates the potential 1983 U.S. market for outpatient surgery — based on extrapolated 1980 statistics. . . .
- 42 mln hospital admissions
- 64% surgery rate (procedure/admissions)
- 50% potential outpatient surgeries
- $400 average case fee
- $5 bln; 40 mln x 63% x $400 + current market potential"
"The low trauma/less invasive surgery market . . . is experiencing a decentralization and fragmentation. Equipping new locations has been a major cause of growth for many suppliers of surgical products. As the trend continues, especially in the non-hospital sector, suppliers are expected to realize still greater growth for less invasive devices and OR disposables."
"U.S. MEDICAL ELECTRONICS MARKET . . .
Competition is intensifying across all five segments of the diagnostic imaging market, which is projected to reach $2.5 bln by 1987. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) offers the great opportunities for the 1980s. CSI forecast a compound annual growth rate of over 70%, and indicates that a strong position in NMR will give imaging firms an advantage in all industry segments. Digital storage of images represents a huge future market, displacing as much as $1 bln in x-ray film. Though the ultimate concept is for all projection x-ray images to be stored digitally, the report states that overall digital storage will not affect radiology departments until the end of the decade."
"CORONARY ANGIOPLASTY
Percutaneous transluminal coronary angioplasty (PTCA), a less costly, nonsurgical alternative to coronary artery bypass (CAB) surgery was reviewed at a recent National Heart, Lung & Blood Institute-sponsored workshop. . . .
The potential market for PTCA is very large. It could replace 20-30% of the 250,000 CAB procedures performed annually in Western nationals (at one-fifth of the cost). Approximately 1.5 mln persons suffer from acute myocardial infarction in the U.S. each If they are admitted fast enough to the ICU/CCU, intracoronary thrombolysis accomplishes reperfusion of the affected coronary artery in 80% of the attempts. However, in the majority of successful cases post-thrombolysis angiography reveals a major coronary stenosis that has not been relieved because only the fresh thrombus is dissolved by streptokinase. . . ."
"U.S. DEVELOPMENTS . . .
On September 1st the Health Care Financing Administration published the interim final rule instituting prospective payment for Medicare's inpatient hospital services. The 139-page regulations are to be phased in over four years . . . with hospitals initially receiving rates principally based on their costs but gradually moving to national average rates. Prospective payments are made on a per patient basis in accordance with the Diagnosis Related Groups (DRGs) classification system that specifies 467 different diagnoses. Each diagnosis has a fixed (but different) payment. . . .
A 15-member Prospective Payment Assessment Commission comprising third-party payers, physicians, nurses and health care technologists will be installed to advise on annual updates and modifications to the DRG system."