Collaboration Leads to Innovation and Improved Patient Care
This article appeared in the January/February 2022 issue of MiMfg Magazine. Read the full issue and find past issues online.
The pace of medical discovery is accelerating faster than most realize. For instance, most are familiar with the speed to market of the COVID-19 vaccines. But how many know about the gene editing, oncology breakthroughs and a blood test for Alzheimer’s that also made news in the past year?
Indeed, medicine and the overall health care environment rewards innovation — something that Fenton-based Domico Med-Device has been delivering on for decades. Domico Med designs, develops and manufactures health care products that make life easier for patients, doctors, nurses and other caregivers.
“We help improve safety and comfort for patients undergoing medical procedures,” says Domico President Michael Czop. “We custom manufacture patient positioning aids for diagnostic imaging applications (MRI, CT, X-ray, ultrasound) operating room (OR) surgical applications, and interventional/hybrid OR applications making these types of procedures easier and less invasive for all involved.”
Changing the Game with Caregiver Collaboration
Like their competitors, Domico Med works extensively with manufacturers and distributors. However, Domico Med goes further — often collaborating directly with doctors, nurses, techs and the broader clinical community to generate ideas and evolve medical products.
This is how Domico Med becomes intimate with medical applications, learning where the gaps are in a procedure, and understanding the solutions needed to improve health care. Essentially, Domico Med’s efforts in product development starts with understanding and information gathering from the people who are actually using the products — the health care professionals who want to improve the well-being of their patients. It’s an innovative approach that has led to successful product development.
In one case, Domico Med collaborated with a group of surgeons at a large regional hospital. The hospital’s goal was to provide the tools needed to perform a cranial surgery procedure in a hybrid operating room versus a traditional operating room. In other words, they wanted to move to a minimally invasive approach of working through catheters and wires inserted through the cardio-
vascular system instead of opening the skull.
Working closely with the hospital and its surgeons, Domico Med developed a positioning device that effectively places the skull fixation system onto the end of an interventional tabletop. The result? Much less patient stress and faster recovery times.
Beyond responding to unique client needs, Domico Med uses these collaborative efforts to educate, foster relationships and build business with manufacturers. Through these unique caregiver collaborations, Domico Med is able to bring innovative product solutions to manufacturer and distributor partners alike.
Building on Their Collaborative Advantage
Working directly with caregivers and providers is an advantage that Domico Med continues to grow and perfect.
“We’ve formed a clinical advisory group with a number of orthopedic surgeons,” says Czop. “It’s an informal group that gathers and assesses the feasibility and value of ideas that come to us from all over.”
At Domico Med, collaboration is the key to creating unique, yet practical, medical devices and products. It’s why they work so closely together — both internally as a team and externally with customers — to plan, design, prototype and manufacture more efficient ways of delivering improved patient care.
Czop takes a lot of pride in the fact they’re able to have a positive impact on people seeking high-
quality health care for themselves and their loved ones.
Learn More About Our Gamechanger
Headquarters: Fenton
Web: domicomed.com
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