What a presidential report means for device manufacturers.

Abstract

In May 2014, a team of experts briefed President Barack Obama on the value of leveraging systems engineering (SE) across a broader context. The recommendations from the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology (PCAST) conclude that SE should be used to reengineer the U.S. healthcare system to improve the patient experience, affordability, and effectiveness of care.1 AAMI and the International Council on Systems Engineering (INCOSE), a nonprofit that has promoted systems engineering principles in the aerospace, automotive, transportation, energy, and biomedical industries, sent a joint letter to Obama in July stating their agreement with the recommendations and that they are uniquely qualified to improve the delivery of healthcare in the United States through SE principles.2 Although this is a change in scope from how most manufacturers apply SE, this broader perspective does in fact have implications for device manufacturers. The PCAST report proposed seven recommendations for boosting the use of systems engineering in healthcare: • Speed the alignment of payment incentives and reported information with better patient outcomes • Accelerate efforts to develop a health data infrastructure • Provide national leadership in SE by increasing the supply of data available to benchmark performance, understand community health, and look at broader trends • Increase technical assistance to healthcare professionals • Support communities in systematic healthcare improvement • Incentivize the use of systems methods in healthcare • Build competencies and workforce for redesigning healthcare