Abstract
Open-source medical devices (OSMDs) have emerged with the potential to transform the biomedical industry towards healthcare technology equity, in connection with the desired universal healthcare coverage. This change of paradigm clearly synergizes with several of the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals and contributes to empower healthcare professionals and patients, creating richness in connection with a more ethical medical industry, maximizing the positive social and economic impacts of medical technology, while helping minimize some environmental drawbacks. However, to prove truly transformative, OSMDs and the innovative communities of medical technology co-creators must find solutions for a sustainable growth for long-term success strategies. Finding and deploying such solutions for sustainable growth relies on developer’s capabilities of putting into value the relevant advantages of open-source approaches to technology development. Once society, healthcare professionals, patients, educators, policymakers, industry and other key stakeholders understand the benefits of OSMDs, the change of paradigm will take place steadily. To this end, performing methodic analyses of economic, environmental and social impacts, covering the whole life cycle of such technologies, can be a fundamental method supporting the transformation.
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Díaz Lantada, A. et al. (2022). On the Sustainable Growth of the Biomedical Industry Reinvented Through Innovative Open-Source Medical Devices. In: Ahluwalia, A., De Maria, C., Díaz Lantada, A. (eds) Engineering Open-Source Medical Devices. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79363-0_11
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-79363-0_11
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