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orthoSIM has been designed as an e-health service for the market segment “orthopaedic surgery” in Europe. orthoSIM, depending upon the service considered, targets at different categories of USERS.
For simulation services, the users will be either clinicians interested in presurgical planning or development engineers looking for a better implant design. Information services are relevant for trainees in orthopaedic surgery, researchers in orthopaedics and biomechanics, and university staff and students in general. For integration services, implant manufacturers will be interested in including their catalogue in the simulation service and owners of validated biomechanical models may wish to e-market their research results by offering their models for simulation.
However, the special characteristics of the orthopaedic surgery market suggest that users are neither the unique nor the main beneficiaries of the orthoSIM services. Indeed, users of the orthoSIM simulation services will hardly be their direct purchasers.
In this sense, our previous experience leads us to consider implant manufacturers, implant distributors, insurance companies and private health institutions as the potential purchasing candidates of the simulation service. They will sponsor the clinical and technical simulations of their users (usually clients or employees).
Since the expenses related to orthopaedic surgery and implant indication are very high in the EU, the prescription of orthoSIM as a complementary preoperative analysis is a paramount opportunity of this project, provided that the effectivess of the simulation results can be quantified and scientifically demonstrated.
Health administrations may prefer buying implants offered for simulation through orthoSIM against other competitors, specially in public calls for tenders. Hospitals may recommend novel surgeons to use the simulation tool in complex cases, where customised modelling may throw alternative insights. Private high-profile hospitals may use orthoSIM as a routinary tool, differentiating their methods from concurring health centres. Surgeons associations may advocate for orthoSIM if they can follow-up the results and participate in the validation process. Patients and patient organisations (NPOs) might presss health authorities to consider preoperative simulation as an efficient tool to communicate with the patient and achieve the best-possible results.
Universities might be willing to use a tool that facilitates training and recycling of surgeons, whereas research centres can carry out valuable investigations without the need to develop their own models, thus reinventing the wheel.
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Society, in general, and taxpayers particularly will endorse any application that can save money to society, supplying more qualified health services at the same time.
orthoSIM’s sales force will sell simulation packages to implant manufacturers, implant distributors and health institutions. “Pay-per-run” and “user credits” will be the basis of the economic model. At the same time, new implant lines will be included in the platform after the necessary modelisation process.
Special exploitation agreements will be reached with prestigious research labs, owning new models that may be interesting to integrate into the service catalogue of orthoSIM.
orthoSIM’s portal will autonomously manage the free and premium subscriptions to the information services. The premium subscription could be “a second best” for potential clients that want to test the service before introducing their products and buying simulation packages.
Finally, in order to facilitate growth and business expansion, the following categories of resellers have been identified:
- Implant distributors. Having direct access to the manufacturers, they are the natural resellers of the service to implant manufacturers.
- Clinical software vendors. Already established software vendors in the health sector are our potential allies, if secure, seemless, interoperable and easy-to-integrate systems can be offered.
- Medical portals. Since these organisations are already virtual, orthoSIM can easily be adopted by them as an optional service, providing seamless integration to their interfaces, even as a “white brand”.
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