Nothing But Surgical Procedure Tailwinds for Medical Device Companies
Joe Sunderman
Ex-JNJ | MBA | High-Impact Data Analyst | Strategic Insights | Open Source Intelligence | Project Management | Research Operations | Content Marketer & Activator | NextUp Cincinnati Member | Culture Thought Leader
After challenging years with the COVID pandemic and the subsequent post-COVID fallout that included depressed patient sentiment, nursing shortages, and supply chain issues, tailwinds are finally at the backs of medical device manufacturers.
Patient Sentiment Improving
Earlier this year, Gallup Poll released its annual Health and Healthcare poll that showed a record high percentage of Americans reporting that they or a family member postponed medical treatment in 2022 due to cost. ?To be fair, when this poll was taken in late November, as there was growing concern of an oncoming recession due to an inverted yield curve.?This economic concern was also reflected in historically low figures from The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index in the third/fourth quarter last year.
While waiting for Gallup to conduct its annual healthcare poll in 2024, there are other indications in improvement on patient sentiment front .?First, The University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment has improved while concerns of a pending recession has waned.?Second, a novel approach to patient sentiment is conducted by Wall Street firm Needham , who measures the Google search trends of 20 elective procedures and have found searches to be 115% above pre-pandemic levels. Thus, Americans are once again re-engaging with their personal health.
Additional patient sentiment measures come from the diagnostic pipeline, which is also showing encouraging measures.?According to Intuitive Surgical’ s recent earnings call, “We see the last year or so of diagnostic pipelines being above pre-COVID levels.”
Nursing Shortage was so 2022
In Q4 2021 and most of 2022, the nursing shortage wreaked havoc not only for hospital administrations to keep staffing levels manageable but caused budget-busting costs with travel nurses.?The nursing shortage also hurt medical device companies, as the pinch of critical staffing challenged the “operations” (no pun intended) ?of surgical procedures
In the graph below, healthcare staffing levels (as measured by the Bureau of Labor Statistics), fell dramatically following the COVID breakout and remain low throughout 2021 and 2022, as burnout decimated this caregiving vocation.?It was not until November 2022 that healthcare staffing levels were at the pre-COVID levels.?This momentum of staffing improvement has continued throughout 2023, as we stand 1.65% above the February 2020 mark in terms of healthcare workers.?This is important, as staffing through the healthcare industry is not only important to the day-to-day activities of a hospital and their patients, but also the surgical procedures.
As nurse staffing has improved, travel nurses have lost their luster (while saving hospital budgets).?
One data point in the travel nurse impact can be seen in publicly traded company AMN Healthcare.?They have a strong presence in the traveling nurse sector and have a breakout of those particular revenues in their quarterly 10-Q reports.?From Q4 2021 through Q3 2022, AMN reaped substantial benefits to the travel nurse demand, as year-over-year revenues soared (95%, 70%).?In their most recent report (Q2 2023), we have seen revenues come back down to early 2021 levels (pre-nurse shortage).?Another good sign is that healthcare staffing is in a more balanced place.
Medical Device Companies Gaining Confidence in Procedure Volume
Finally, medical device companies are finally seeing the benefits of all previous root causes of surgical procedures headwinds dissipating.
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On Tuesday, Medtronic raised profit forecast as surgeries return to pre-pandemic levels while boosting demand for its medical devices.?Similarly, Abbott Laboratories, Stryker, and Boston Scientific are indicating similar benefits from a rise in non-urgent surgeries.?
In the most recent round of quarterly earnings, Intuitive, Stryker and Zimmer Biomet cited procedure volumes improving.
Intuitive
“We think there is some backlog effect from patients generally returning to more normalized healthcare routines, given the effect of the pandemic over several years.” https://www.medtechdive.com/news/intuitive-ISRG-1Q23-results/648019/
Stryker
“The results reflect a quarter in which procedure volumes continued to ramp up “very nicely,” Lobo said on the call, furthering the recovery that began in the second half of last year.”
?Zimmer
“The company reported a 10% increase in revenue and net income 16 times what it was a year earlier, which Hanson attributed to better-than-expected procedure recovery, improved management of supply constraints, new product launches, and little impact from the COVID-19 pandemic in the quarter.”
The bottom line is that after years following multiple challenges for the medical device sector impacting surgical procedures, it appears that patient sentiment, nursing shortages, and supply chain issues appear to be in the rear view mirror for the near term.
Now, if we can only get the Federal Reserve to slightly pivot from their hawkish position, this would help overall stocks and medical device makers as well.
About Joe Sunderman - Innovative account and product data analyst with unwavering commitment to marketing and sales stakeholders. Solution-oriented leader who builds productive relationships with the unrelenting pursuit to comprehend market and share developments. Collaborative complex business solver who blends internal / external data to identify trends and to extract insights as the basis to formulate tactics and strategies to drive sales performance. Currently seeking new opportunities to collaborate with high-performing teams and organizations in medical device and/or marketing research firms.