Value-driven engineering (VdE) is the focal point of a plan developed by a group of leading biomedical organizations that assembled last March at A Safe Haven Summit in Washington, DC, convened by the Austen Bioinnovation Institute in Akron (ABIA), a collaboration of hospitals and health organizations (Akron Children’s Hospital, Akron General Health System, and Summa Health Systems
and universities (Northeastern Ohio Universities Colleges of Medicine and Pharmacy (NEOUCOM) and The University of Akron ), focused on patient-centered innovation and commercialization.

The Safe Haven Summit group, which includes execs from Medtronic, the Cleveland Clinic, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Mayo Clinic, Orthopaedic Research Laboratories, Stanford University, and the University of Akron, are calling for the medtech industry to concentrate on developing devices with greater clinical utility, reduced complexity, sustained quality, and cost efficiency, according to ABIA President and CEO Frank Douglas.

Details are in the group’s white paper, “Value-driven Engineering for US Global Competitiveness: A Call for a National Platform to Advance Value-Driven Engineering.”

The initiative also is calling for federal funding strategies to help VdE educational environments, with the white paper introducing “a series of recommendations for increasing education around VdE and focused on the development of critical partners, leveraging federal funding strategies, and promoting workforce development,” says Youseph Yazdi, executive director for the Center for Bioengineering Innovation and Design at Johns Hopkins University.

As discussions continue over whether FDA’s 510(k) product review process is counterproductive to the US medtech industry, it’s encouraging to see leaders push for a Platform to Advance Value-Driven Engineering (PAVE). (By the way, to weigh in with your opinion on current FDA practices, answer the MedicalDesign.com Reader Poll question.

“We believe the adoption of these principles from all involved—whether they are in industry, academia, venture philanthropy, or the public sector—will help to spur innovation in the biomedical sector,” says Mike Hess, Medtronic’s vice president of innovation excellence.