The role technology plays in advancing patient care alongside unpredictable healthcare challenges

We attend the British Orthopaedic Association (BOA) Annual Congress every year, it’s a great opportunity for us to showcase how we support healthcare professionals with ongoing challenges and gives us the perfect opportunity to introduce new technologies. This year was particularly important to us, as we brought together our DePuy Synthes and Ethicon brands under our new brand identity; Johnson & Johnson MedTech.

Though in many ways we are enjoying a long-awaited return to a relative sense of 'normality', for many of those accessing and working in our healthcare system, this is not the case, as the NHS backlog continues to rise. The latest figures now show that the number of patients on NHS England waiting lists in the UK has risen to an astonishing 6.63million - an increase of more than 50% since March 2020 when the global pandemic was first declared.

The pandemic was a catalyst for the adoption of digital solutions and patient’s expectations have evolved as a result of this. As these expectations in healthcare rapidly evolve, we have transitioned to a MedTech company to dramatically accelerate the need to re-envision the future of health. Our transition echoes the ever-changing needs of patients, HCPs and the health care system as a whole, in a shift towards value-based and personalized care. Technology is fast-tracking this change, allowing us to advance care at pace with unprecedented challenges in our system.

We have all learnt from COVID-19 in many ways, but I think that most importantly, we have learnt from the immense opportunity to build on the digital foundations accelerated during the pandemic, to create a truly integrated healthcare system. Although we will never replace the care offered by a healthcare professional with technology, by working in much closer collaboration, the technology and healthcare industries can shape the NHS services and deliver more personalised care for patients, resulting in a better experience and reduced waiting times.

Attending the BOA Congress this year was a great reminder of how much un-tapped potential there is in the orthopaedic industry, and in particular, diversity in this field. That is why we were so proud to lead the way by launching our Women of Orthopaedics campaign at this event. Some of our senior R&D engineers held a fantastic, engaging ‘Diversity in Design’ session to showcase the current techniques our team are using to encourage inclusivity in orthopaedics, as well as discussing how diverse design, opinions and panels are having a positive impact with benefits for all.

Currently, only 7% of orthopaedic consultants in the UK are women. This should be a surprising figure, but unfortunately, it’s not. At the congress we brought together over 40 female surgeons, allowing a network of like-minded individuals to have an open and honest conversation about how we, as an industry partner, can be true allies in this space and help to make major changes to reduce this disparity.

At DePuy Synthes and Johnson & Johnson MedTech, we are taking a multi-disciplinary approach to address this historical disparity in female representation and equity in Orthopaedics. It is a key priority for us, and we see it as our responsibility to ensure we help retain female registrars, create inclusive role models and design instruments that are ergonomic for all.

We learnt a lot, shared our vision for the future of healthcare and came away more committed than ever to make orthopaedics an industry for all to thrive in. This is just the start of our commitment in diversity as a whole, and on the back of many important conversations held at the conference you will be seeing much more from our Women of Orthopaedics team – watch this space!

We still have a long way to go, but I’m excited that as Johnson & Johnson MedTech we are leading the way in innovating inclusive technologies and digital resources to support our healthcare system in tackling the elective care backlog and moving beyond traditional products toward complete, intelligent solutions that enable a more predictable treatment pathway to help improve efficiencies and outcomes.