Buying Processes of Ambulances - How to Sell Med Devices

[vicvicvictoria23]

Hello,

I work for a medical device company called Mindful Scientific (http://mindfulscientific.ca/). We are investigating the different buying processes of our end users, including ambulances.

In order to have our device in all ambulances, what steps would we need to take? Does it very by state/province? Who makes the purchasing decision?

Any insight would be great!

Thanks,

Victoria

[CPhT]

You might start by contacting the different medical directors in your area. Ultimately, they will be the ones who say that the item can or can't be used in the ambulances and will be approving the protocols for using the device. Speaking of which, what is the device? I looked on your website and the only thing I found quickly was a device to measure a patients level of consciousness in "less than 5 minutes". What is different about your tool than the methods we've used for the last ~50 years? What makes your tool worth the (supposed) thousands of dollars it costs versus our normal methods?

These are the things you'll likely have to explain to a medical director, and after that, to each individual service who will have to justify the cost of the product.

Who is your target with your product? Do you want a product in each ambulance? What provider level are you aiming at? BLS? ALS? CCT? Air transport?

I don't want to come off as an ass, but we need to know more about your product, as well as more about your company. Have you done studies which show improved patient care or increased survival rate while utilizing your product?

[Richard B the EMT]

Would some of the Canadians of EMT City please advise on existence of something called the Canadian "Kickass" Award, mentioned in the OPs link?

Victoria, the device seems to be some variety of Electro-Encephalo-Graph (EEG, check full spelling?), which is probably a device for "Stay and Play" not "Load and Go", a grossly oversimplified discription of the type patients we get.

Due to the mechanism of injury (MOI), most of us here know when to suspect Traumatic Brain Injury, and would probably not be using such device, leaving it for "In Hospital" usage, at least in my opinion.

[Chief1C]

Have you dropped it yet?

You better drop it a few times. If it breaks, it doesn't belong on an ambulance yet.

[vicvicvictoria23]

Thank you for your responses!

The HCS is a portable EEG that is used to assess consciousness when head injury occurs. In a fast, 5-minute test, the HCS assesses five key indictors of neural processing: sensation, perception, attention, memory and language.

If an individual is suspected of a head injury (concussion), the HCS can be used as a tool in the medical professionals "tool-belt". Unlike current head-injury protocol (ie Glasgow Coma Scale) - The HCS is an objective test that cannot be cheated by patients or misinterpreted by medical professionals. It can be used for initial diagnosis of injury, return-to-play decisions and quality-of-life decisions.

Our primary markets include:

- hospitals (ICU's, neurology wards and ERs)

- sports industry

- military

For use in an ambulance, it would be beneficial in a situation where someone MAY have incurred a head injury. For example: a man is involved in a car accident. An ambulance arrives at the seen, but the man insists he is fine - when he actually has a concussion. As you probably know, concussion (or mild traumatic brain injury) often times lacks noticeable symptoms.