health

European firms help Japan cut medical costs

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By Martin Foster for EURObiZ Japan

Faced with the demographic difficulties of a rapidly aging population, healthcare costs could be one of Japan’s greatest challenges in the coming years. Finding funding solutions to maintaining a quality healthcare system will be difficult, compounded by a traditional mindset favouring institutional over home-based care. Simply put, it has been the tradition in Japan for the elderly and ill to go to the hospital, rather than seek treatment in their own homes.

Slowly, though, that mindset is changing, and European medical device companies are leading the way, thanks to a combination of innovation and reduced red tape. Compared with four years ago, relations have greatly improved between Japanese regulators and European medical manufacturers. Innovation and increased engagement by the EBC has also bred results.

One big change on the horizon comes this November, when the Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare (MHLW) introduces the Revised Pharmaceutical Affairs Law — with a new name, the Pharmaceutical and Medical Device Law — recognising medical devices as an independent field, separate from drugs and medications.

“We welcome the new law as a favourable direction for medical devices,” says Izumi Hamada, head of government affairs at Philips Electronics Japan and secretary general of the EBC Medical Equipment Committee.

“We are moving towards a more rational set of regulations,” adds Kaname Yamamoto, director of the Office of Medical Devices at the MHLW. “We want people to understand that this is a significant move for Japan.”

Philips is one company whose products can help more patients remain at home for treatment. For example, introduced in 2011, a portable, waterproof personal transmitter pendant can be worn on a soft neck cord or on the wrist. This pendant contains a fixed transponder, allowing for two-way voice communication between the user and a support response centre. In case of an emergency, responders are on-call 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. The pendant’s multiple sensors automatically detect (at a detection rate of over 95%) when the user suffers a fall, and notifies the support centre.

This device and response service has already helped at least one patient: a 70-year-old woman who had fallen twice over a period of a month at home and was considering moving to a care facility. Now, with the new device, she can stay at home.

While some European manufacturers are developing stay-at-home medical devices or products, others are coming up with solutions for streamlining hospital care — to make the overall healthcare system more efficient. Dräger Medical Japan is a good example. Its advanced ICU ventilator workstation customises and streamlines the workflow. The system provides a software package that ensures mobile monitoring and information about a patient are all easily accessible to doctors, nurses and medical technicians.

“In the hospital segment, we have key propositions that address the challenges of countries with developed healthcare systems and ageing population, low birth rates and shortage of nursing staff,” says Holger Klein, Dräger’s president and representative director for Japan. “[These include ideas for] improved clinical outcome; reduced stay in the ICU; higher, or thorough developmental and family-centred care in the [neonatal intensive care unit]; ergonomic and efficient workplace; and cross-departmental hospital solutions.”

Innovation is also the name of the game at Siemens, which in 2012 introduced a unique Molecular Magnetic Resonance imaging system that integrated Positron Emission Tomography and Magnetic Resonance technology.

Siemens was rightly proud of its innovation, but got an unexpected response from Japanese authorities, according to Junichi Obata, Siemens Japan president and CEO. “For the new system to be commercially viable, we needed to obtain a high reimbursement rate, but we have frankly had difficulty getting such a premium,” he says. “In fact, the Japanese authorities told us [that] it is a productivity gain, and you should be able to do it cheaper.”

The Japanese medical device market accounts for approximately 10% of the global market, just behind the United States, and was worth an estimated ¥2.4 trillion in 2011, according to data from the MHLW. Imports account for 44.4% of domestic sales, and the rapidly greying Japanese population is expected to further expand this market.

But one problem that persists is known as “device lag” — delays due to Japan’s lengthy approval process that leave certain medical devices available a generation behind those in Europe and the US. A new five-year action programme review was launched in 2009 to address this problem, and the consensus is that the gap is shrinking.

“I would say that everyone believes that the device lag has narrowed in the last five years,” Obata says. “I feel that entry barriers for foreign [makers of diagnostic devices] are not huge, but with the caveat that you must have competent regulatory and quality groups. “

Most cases of concern in the medical devices area may have been removed for now. But apart from developmental lags, Hamada of the EBC Medical Equipment Committee feels that the Japanese medical equipment market has yet to arrive at a model that is consistent with global markets.

“In order for the Japanese medical devices market to enjoy significant growth ahead, it will be necessary to boost the investment desire of overseas companies, which, in the final analysis, will lead to Japanese patients receiving more sophisticated devices.”

© Japan Today

©2024 GPlusMedia Inc.

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This confuses me.

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