The Rise of the On-Demand Robot Industry (MDDI)
CAPEX versus OPEX - Why the Future of Surgical Robots Will Be "As a Service."
As medical technology advances, we’re seeing the emergence and the importance of the ‘as-a-service’ model for medical devices. Specifically, the procurement of surgical robots as a capital expenditure is changing to include an on-demand robot usage model. Increasing healthcare costs, driven in part, by a worldwide pandemic, is driving medical device manufacturers to rethink their CAPEX heavy business models, which must be approved by hospital’s value-added committees (VAC).
Currently, it appears that the device manufacturers have built their entire business on an upfront capital-intensive business model (surgical robots, diagnostics and imaging machines) forfeiting the smaller rural and community hospitals that are unable to get the latest medical technology. Many of these smaller hospitals rely on receiving federal grants to survive and more than often these hospitals cannot afford the latest equipment due to heavy upfront capital costs.
Historically, businesses in nearly every industry have had to radically revise their infrastructure and...
