As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, the MedTech industry is continuing to see a multitude of changes and disruptions worldwide. SmartTRAK's analysts continue to monitor the effect COVID-19 is having on the Life Sciences industry, sifting through the noise to present the most relevant news to its subscribers and report on the impact the global healthcare crisis is having on the industry at large.

Following is a selection of the COVID-19 updates from the past week as compiled by SmartTRAK:

Surgeon Survey: COVID-19 Impact

• A survey of 50 orthopedic surgeons reported ~40% are still seeing both new and existing pts, while a third is only seeing pts for emergency or urgent issues. Telemedicine adoption has accelerated w/ 32% of survey takers noting some recent use. Canaccord Genuity Industry Report
• According to a 50-surgeon survey, postponements of orthopedic procedures have led to a sharp decline in pt volumes, w/ respondents indicating a 58% avg decline in March and an anticipated 77% avg decline in April. Canaccord Genuity Industry Report
• According to a 50-surgeon survey, 60% indicated that their organizations had already made formal decisions to defer or postpone orthopedic procedures, w/ ~33% indicating that over 90% of their entire practice was deferrable. Canaccord Genuity Industry Report
  
  

• SmartTRAK physician checks suggest elective procedure volumes for aneurysm cases will pick up in H219, assuming social isolation and other non- pharmaceutical interventions effectively reduce the spread of COVID-19 and healthcare demand.
• SmartTRAK is hearing from neurointerventionalists that COVID-19 is affecting elective procedure volumes for aneurysm cases, but those patients are being rescheduled—not canceled. Mechanical thrombectomy procedures have not been impacted to date.

Healthy competition ignited by new product intros propels extremities arthroplasty while fixation runs into tough comps along with a lack of new product drivers

Krishnan Chakravarthy, MD, PhD discusses the state of the pandemic and its impact on pain medicine in an interview with SmartTRAK

Krishnan Chakravarthy, MD, PhD discusses the COVID-19 pandemic, current and evolving methods for containing and treating the virus, how it's changing the practice of pain medicine and its impact on industry in an interview with SmartTRAK. Dr. Chakravarthy is Chairman of the COVID-19 Task Force for the American Society of Pain and Neuroscience (ASPN), a virologist, pain management specialist and assistant professor of anesthesiology at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). 

To find out more, including lessons learned from the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic, click on the following video to listen to the interview conducted by Anne Staylor, SmartTRAK's Managing Editor and Director of Advanced Technologies, recorded live via Uberconference (47:29 minutes).  Specific interview topics by time code are also outlined below, as is a link to download the transcript.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop rapidly, the MedTech industry is already seeing many changes and disruptions. SmartTRAK has collected updates and news from the last few days concerning the spread of COVID-19 and how it is affecting the Life Sciences Industry.

COVID-19 AWCS

• Alliance of Wound Care Stakeholders (AWCS) held an emergency call to discuss hospital wound care clinics being considered non-essential and being asked to close due to COVID-19. Participants included wound clinics, providers and manufactures.
• Medical Directors from Healogics and Restorix, and other wound clinics requested the AWCS publish a one page fact sheet asap stating the importance of wound clinics staying open for challenging pts, as w/o care, the probability of needing emergency care increases significantly.

ACS Issues Decision-Making Guidance on Elective Procedures
With calls to curtail elective surgery, the ACS published guidance on the mgmt of non-emergent operations and suggests surgeons use SLU’s Elective Surgery Acuity Scale to help decide whether procedures should be postponed, performed at an ASC or not postponed.

Tracking COVID-19 via Smart Phones
The US Government is talking w/ tech companies (Facebook, Google, etc) and health experts re how they can use data gleaned from Americans’ phones to map the spread of COVID-19 to predict the next hotspot or decide where to allocate resources. Seattle Times

Positive gains in the mid-single digits for Q319, a slight decrease from previous quarter

Prevention of HAIs continues to drive measures and practices to reduce Central Line Associated Bloodstream Infections (CLABSIs) and is creating demand for products that can address these issues. In response, numerous programs and educational tools are being launched providing measures and strategies to assist healthcare providers in the prevention and reduction of infection in acute care and other settings.

Last quarter, a coalition of nurses and the AVA launched a drive to support a safety initiative for placing vascular access specialists in every hospital across America. This theme continued at this year’s AVA conference with the mission statement of “Protect the Patient, Educate the Clinician and Save the Line” highlighting the overall focus for the event. Acknowledgment of the importance of the vascular access nurse and team were featured in numerous studies and presentations demonstrating the value of the vascular access team in practice...

Among the many topics covered in the complete, comprehensive Q319 US Infection Prevention Market Recap* are: