Exploring 3DP/AM in the Healthcare Horizon

At the end of each year, I find myself pausing to reflect on how additive manufacturing (AM) has impacted the medical device industry, and anticipating the incredible opportunities it will bring in the coming year.
 
AM is already a widely adopted manufacturing process used to produce millions of medical devices and healthcare products every year. The technology enables medical device engineers and surgeons to develop next-generation innovation quickly and cost-effectively, and manufacturers to scale efficiently to meet demands.
 
Common uses for AM include the printing of patient-specific surgical implants and instruments derived from imaging data, the creation of medical education models that represent patient anatomy, and the manufacturing of metal implants and instruments with features that are impossible to fabricate using traditional subtractive manufacturing.  
 
During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, hospitals turned to additive manufacturing
as a rapid response tool and used it to solve supply chain issues for supplies like face shields, masks, and diagnostic swabs. Now, they are integrating AM to print personalized implants, instruments, and anatomic models at the point of care, and manufacturers are evaluating ways to adapt their portfolios to this evolving approach to device design and production.
 
As we look ahead to 2024, I believe the primary drivers for the medical device industry will be: cost, innovation and speed to market, and supply chain security and stability. Additive manufacturing (AM) is renowned for its ability to support these trends, and I anticipate we’ll see the adoption of AM in medical devices accelerate through the coming year to benefit a range of applications.
 
The focus on personalization will continue to grow for applications including craniomaxillofacial, orthopedic oncology, spinal fusion surgeries, and total joint reconstruction. I anticipate increased pressure for faster turnaround times which will require local end-to-end solutions in large markets like the U.S. and Europe. This will be increasingly important for leading point-of-care institutions for handling complex cases such as those in trauma. This will require AM solution providers to adapt and simplify their workflows with tighter software integration, including the use of deep learning algorithms and AI, to manage complex personalization cases and more efficiently scale operations. Additionally, these institutions will be able to simplify and take control of their supply chain while reducing cost and turnaround time.
 
With the increasing cost of healthcare in the U.S., we are seeing an unprecedented acceleration in the popularity of Ambulatory Surgical Centers (ASCs) as a substitute for less complex surgeries involving medical devices that would have previously only occurred in large hospitals. ASCs typically have a much leaner operating cost model so that they can offer surgeries at significantly reduced costs to the patients. Since these are smaller footprint centers, thus present in larger numbers with cities, they can also cater to a much larger patient population with greater flexibility to schedule surgeries thus amplifying the number of cases being handled by these institutions. These institutions typically have a low inventory model as compared to large hospitals due to their size and are incentivized to address personalized cases to reduce inventory burdens for implants and instruments. As a result, I believe we’ll see an increased adoption of AM from medical device OEMs as they start servicing the demands of this growing network of ASCs nationwide.
 
To date, AM has showcased its transformative advantages across a broad spectrum of applications in healthcare. It’s inspiring to see how the technology enables innovation across diverse applications as well as the ever-expanding use cases in healthcare that remedy supply chain issues. Building on this momentum, I’m looking forward to how the use of additive manufacturing will persist in playing a pivotal role in shaping innovation to meet the medical challenges of tomorrow.