“We should all be acting like Amazon’s getting into our business” -Johnson and Johnson CEO Alex Gorsky on CNBC, 2018
Believe it or not, this is how implants that are put inside your body during surgery are usually tracked.
This is not only a huge quality problem (studies show that half of all patient orthopedic implant records contain errors), but an enormous lost marketing opportunity for the device industry.
The problem is that most orthopedic implants are removed from their packages and put into large trays before they are used. The implants are often quite small (think a 1 mm diameter screw) and have proven extremely problematic to barcode. All usage information is recorded manually (see above picture from an actual surgery). This cascades into an entirely manual process of between 6-8 steps, including multiple manual data input steps between 4-5 different people in different areas of the hospital.
A company like Amazon would analyze the above process and see a giant juicy steak of opportunity for them to devour. They would beat their competition in two primary areas: operations/supply chain efficiency (bottom line), and targete...
