Driving Our Digital Future Today

One of the many inspiring things about Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is our incredible legacy of delivering innovations that have truly made a difference to patients over the past 130 years. As a leader of Ethicon, I’m particularly proud of our surgical innovations, starting way back in the late 1800s when J&J mass produced the first ever sterilized, absorbent cotton, and antiseptic sutures and gauze. Since then, J&J’s innovations have saved, enhanced, and extended the lives of generations – most recently seen in our response to the COVID-19 pandemic, where we met patient and customer needs by deploying a vaccine and solutions to improve efficiency and capacity in healthcare systems.

As we now cautiously start to imagine life beyond the pandemic, I believe there is another vital, transformational area where Ethicon can continue this legacy: digital healthcare. It’s clear that COVID-19 was a catalyst for the rapid adoption of digital solutions, accelerating many of the underlying trends that were gathering pace pre-pandemic. We must capitalize on this momentum and use it as a springboard to shape a future where medical intervention is smarter, less invasive, and more personalized.

At Ethicon, we are already providing high-quality, innovative digital products which help improve outcomes, transform care experience, expand capacity, and reduce cost along the care pathway. This includes things like digital platforms that choreograph OR workflow to help reduce variability, virtual 3D modelling to reduce operative time and shorten the length of patient stays, and optimized patient pathways to decrease complications, increase satisfaction and reduce costs.

But to really drive this digital future, we must also build an ecosystem of connectivity between such solutions. That’s why are adding intelligent features to our current digital offerings, whilst also building foundations to drive connectivity, intelligence, and a unified customer experience, including a recent collaboration with Microsoft.

But what does this really mean for healthcare professionals and patients? Take Ethicon’s work on anastomotic leaks, where through the Colorectal Next campaign, we are striving to develop the next generation of integrated treatment solutions in colorectal care. Here, we are integrating digital solutions like virtual 3D modelling and digitally managed OR workflows with our trusted products, whilst also engaging leading healthcare professionals and institutions to establish best practice and elevate standards of care. It’s a truly powerful combination which embraces our legacy but also our digital future.

To truly enable the power of digital, there is more work for us all to do. But in a pandemic-hit world where surgery backlogs continue to rise, our patients need us more than ever. Ethicon stands ready as we accelerate into this new era of tech-driven treatment - through which we can transform the future of medical intervention and honour J&J’s longstanding legacy of delivering game-changing innovation.