Stakeholder Variety in Healthcare and Their Integration in the Medical Device Development Process

Abstract

The innovation process of medical devices is not easily manageable and already the early stages of the innovation process decide on the duration and costs of product development. A great challenge for medical device developers is the variety of stakeholders that are included in the development process. In order to ensure that all stakeholders accept the new medical devices, developers have to consider their specific needs and have to overcome a few challenges: first, the stakeholder identification including their needs, opportunities and challenges of working together and second, the stakeholder integration focusing on the stages of the medical device development process (MDDP) and methods for user integration.