Medtech Goes to Capitol Hill

AdvaMed’s annual Medtech Showcase and Reception on Capitol Hill seeks to inform a core audience: the members of the Congress and their staff who enact the policies that help our member companies reach patients with their transformative medtech.

What is medtech? How does it differ from pharmaceuticals and biotechnology? What role does it play in our health care system? What medical miracles does it facilitate? Does it reach every patient who could benefit from it? If not, how can Congress improve access to it?

These are the fundamental questions the showcase answers, and there are no better instructors than the medtech company experts who know their products inside and out and gladly explain how they work and how fundamental they are to patient care to curious elected representatives and their staffers.

This year’s showcase, in the historic Cannon Caucus Room of the U.S. House of Representatives, featured more than 40 examples of medtech from 37 companies representing a variety of health care sectors and companies ranging from the smallest start-ups – a third of our participants were small businesses and start-ups – to multinational corporations that are household names.

The medtech on hand ranged from kidney care and diagnostic systems weighing hundreds of pounds to the latest wearables monitoring blood glucose levels and sleep patterns weighing an ounce.

A sample of what our hundreds of attendees – from U.S. Reps. Angie Craig of Minnesota and Vince Fong of California to staff from the U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate to patient advocates – saw firsthand:

• Medtech to precisely measure mobility, like Arnold Schwarzenegger (hint: “You’ll Be Back”).

• The latest in remote patient monitoring and wearable devices, where clinicians can watch maternal, fetal, and cardiac performance without tethering patients to a hospital bed.

• An ingestible capsule that can detect intestinal bleeding in under 10 minutes.

• A finger-tip-worn device that can record up to 10 nights of sleep data, helping to diagnose sleep apnea.

• The latest surgical power tools for knee, hip, and shoulder replacement.

• Precise, high-energy radiation to kill or shrink cancer cells.

• An AI device to diagnose diabetic vision loss in multiple health care settings. 

• Blood tests to diagnose Hepatitis C and seamlessly connect to treatment and care in a single visit; using genomic science and machine learning to detect pancreatic cancer early; and screen for deadly ovarian cancer.

• A smart mat to test for risk of diabetic foot problems.

• The results of continuous glucose monitors in real time and how small and light these wearables are.

• The vantage point of a surgeon using a 3D video system and viewing the live image through Apple’s Vision Pro spatial reality computing device. 

And much more.

Thanks to the medtech examples showcase attendees could see and touch, the event conveyed our critical points: Our nation leads the world in cutting-edge medtech innovation. Medtech is the backbone of our health care system. Medtech advancements are transforming health care, restoring and improving lives, and saving patients, clinicians, and taxpayers time and money. The next time congressional staff go to the doctor or a clinic or work on health care legislation, having attended the showcase, they’ll have a better sense of what medtech is and how indispensable it is to good health.