Here’s a curious thought. Imagine inventing a better parachute.
You spend years proving it works. It’s safer, lighter and easier to use. Every independent test says it’s an improvement…but nobody buys it.
Most people would conclude there must be something wrong with the parachute.
What if there wasn’t?
During my conversation with Vee Mapunde, Co-Director of the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care, we explored why promising health technologies so often fail to become routine patient care.
One idea stood out heads and shoulders above the rest:
Founders often believe they’re selling technology, yet the NHS believes it’s being asked to change the way it works.
Those are not the same thing.
A technology that improves clinical outcomes may also need different workflows, new approvals, extra training, changes to procurement, or simply more time in an already overstretched clinic.
Suddenly, the discussion isn’t about whether the technology is better but whether the system can absorb the change.
That may explain why some remarkable technologies struggle while seemingly less impressive ones quietly become part of everyday practice.
Maybe adoption has less to do with building a better product, but more to do with reducing the cost of changing minds, habits and systems.
It’s a subtle distinction but subtle distinctions often create the biggest strategic advantages.
If you’re building technology for the NHS, it’s worth asking yourself one question.
Are you selling a product…OR making it easier for the system to change?
If you’re building for the NHS, this conversation may change the questions you’re asking before you build the next feature. ⬇️
One insight from the conversation deserves a closer look.
I created the carousel below to illustrate one of the biggest misconceptions founders make when bringing innovation into the NHS.
It was inspired by my conversation with Vee Mapunde, Co-Director of the NIHR HealthTech Research Centre in Accelerated Surgical Care.
If this idea resonates with you, the full conversation explores it in much greater depth.
We discuss why promising health technologies fail to become routine patient care, the hidden stakeholders founders often overlook, and why adoption is ultimately a systems challenge rather than a technology challenge.
#MedTech #HealthTech #NHSInnovation #HealthcareInnovation #MedicalDevices #SignalBeforeScale
Leave a Reply