By Arundhati Parmar
Recently, Medtronic’s CEO, Omar Ishrak, made himself available for an interview on a wide range of topics related to medtech, his own company and the changing healthcare paradigm.
In the near 40-minute interview at the company’s erstwhile headquarters in Fridley, Minnesota, what became apparent is how the chief executive of the largest medtech company in the world has embraced the concept of accountable care.
Ishrak used the word “outcomes” 29 times in the conversation and “accountable” or “accountability” 11 times. And these were used not just in the context of reimbursement or hospital purchasing, but also in explaining the mission of Medtronic and its relationship with patients.
Being accountabie, then, is the mantra that Medtronic’s CEO lives by. Ishrak is medtech’s Mr. Accountability.
Supporters may say that Ishrak’s emphasis on proving that medtech therapies achieve good clinical outcomes is a sign that he is running a smart medtech company able to adjust to market demands wrought by the Affordable Care Act. Naysayers may say that it’s easy for him to issue a clarion call for accountable care given the vast resources that the corporation has that smaller medtech firms similarly navigating the headwinds do not.
But that is possibly besides the point. Ishrak seems to genuinely feel that the medtech industry will be elevated if every stakeholder involved in it understands and strives toward developing therapies and creating systems that achieve good clinical outcomes.
