Inaugural Innovation Summit Addressed CTS Creativity and Development

 

The first AATS Innovation Summit was launched on Saturday morning. The Summit was designed to assist cardiothoracic surgeons in developing new clinically applicable technology by giving them information on how to protect intellectual property, obtain funding, and conduct clinical trials. Attendees also got the latest updates on regulatory pathways and advice on building industry relationships needed to forge a novel product.

Pedro J. del Nido, MD, who was instrumental in coming up with the original idea for the Summit, introduced former AATS President W. Randolph Chitwood Jr., MD, who served as Program Director.

Courtesy Martin Allred

Dr. Chitwood, of East Carolina University, said that the Innovation Summit was already successful in that there were more than five times as many attendees as had been originally planned for.

“The most fun part of this meeting,” Dr. Chitwood promised, would be the Commercialization Workshop at the end of the day “where we develop a fictitious product and carry it all the way to commercialization.”

Michael J. Mack, MD, a famous innovator in his own right, opened the didactic portion of the program by outlining the Summit Challenges.

Courtesy Martin Allred

Dr. Mack, of the Baylor Health Care System, detailed what he saw as the essential steps to innovation and the direction he saw that innovation was taking.

“The whole field of cardiac surgery is moving to a catheter-based approach,” he declared.

He pointed out the tremendous growth in the invention of catheter-based products in the mitral regurgitation space. “The field is fertile with innovators,” he added.

In order to be innovative, he said, quoting what he called the Bavaria Rules, after Joseph E. Bavaria, MD, “You’ve got to have a vision; you’ve got to have a strategy; you need the tactics to implement that strategy, and at the end of the day, you have to execute that strategy.”

He concluded his talk saying, “Our field has a legacy of innovation. Our challenge is to adopt the tools to move that innovation field forward that our specialty has always been known for.”

Courtesy Martin Allred

In his morning keynote address, James L. Cox, MD, of Washington University, spoke on “Surgeon Innovators and the Innovation Imperative.”

He listed some of the major innovations in the cardiac space over the past 60+ years, from the beginning of aortic surgery, to mitral valve surgery, the Maze procedure, and even TAVR, pointing out that historically at least 10-20 years has been the lag time between the development of the innovation and its more-or-less widespread adoption, following the so-called S-curve.

The next stage of innovation is not starting from scratch, he said, but rather the recognition that the previous innovation can be improved upon, and the beginning of a new innovation S-curve at the peak of the old, a process of continual development and refinement.

Dr. Cox stressed that for innovation to be adopted, it couldn’t be overly complex, citing the Maze procedure for atrial fibrillation, which was highly superior to the alternatives for treating AF, but has still lagged behind pulmonary vein isolation, a much less effective, but much easier technique used by interventional cardiologists.

He showed data demonstrating that when it came to innovative techniques, cure rate effectively did not matter to adoption, compared to the level of complexity of the new procedure.

He added that it was important for any new innovation to not “get too far away” from nature and its lessons, and that it should not be too complex to be routinely trained for and adopted.

Dr. Cox concluded with an admonition to new innovators to “listen to what your peers say. They have ideas, experiences, and imaginations of their own.”

He added that “they may or may not have anything to say that will change your course, but you have to listen to them.”

 

The first AATS Innovation Summit was launched on Saturday morning. The Summit was designed to assist cardiothoracic surgeons in developing new clinically applicable technology by giving them information on how to protect intellectual property, obtain funding, and conduct clinical trials. Attendees also got the latest updates on regulatory pathways and advice on building industry relationships needed to forge a novel product.

Pedro J. del Nido, MD, who was instrumental in coming up with the original idea for the Summit, introduced former AATS President W. Randolph Chitwood Jr., MD, who served as Program Director.

Courtesy Martin Allred

Dr. Chitwood, of East Carolina University, said that the Innovation Summit was already successful in that there were more than five times as many attendees as had been originally planned for.

“The most fun part of this meeting,” Dr. Chitwood promised, would be the Commercialization Workshop at the end of the day “where we develop a fictitious product and carry it all the way to commercialization.”

Michael J. Mack, MD, a famous innovator in his own right, opened the didactic portion of the program by outlining the Summit Challenges.

Courtesy Martin Allred

Dr. Mack, of the Baylor Health Care System, detailed what he saw as the essential steps to innovation and the direction he saw that innovation was taking.

“The whole field of cardiac surgery is moving to a catheter-based approach,” he declared.

He pointed out the tremendous growth in the invention of catheter-based products in the mitral regurgitation space. “The field is fertile with innovators,” he added.

In order to be innovative, he said, quoting what he called the Bavaria Rules, after Joseph E. Bavaria, MD, “You’ve got to have a vision; you’ve got to have a strategy; you need the tactics to implement that strategy, and at the end of the day, you have to execute that strategy.”

He concluded his talk saying, “Our field has a legacy of innovation. Our challenge is to adopt the tools to move that innovation field forward that our specialty has always been known for.”

Courtesy Martin Allred

In his morning keynote address, James L. Cox, MD, of Washington University, spoke on “Surgeon Innovators and the Innovation Imperative.”

He listed some of the major innovations in the cardiac space over the past 60+ years, from the beginning of aortic surgery, to mitral valve surgery, the Maze procedure, and even TAVR, pointing out that historically at least 10-20 years has been the lag time between the development of the innovation and its more-or-less widespread adoption, following the so-called S-curve.

The next stage of innovation is not starting from scratch, he said, but rather the recognition that the previous innovation can be improved upon, and the beginning of a new innovation S-curve at the peak of the old, a process of continual development and refinement.

Dr. Cox stressed that for innovation to be adopted, it couldn’t be overly complex, citing the Maze procedure for atrial fibrillation, which was highly superior to the alternatives for treating AF, but has still lagged behind pulmonary vein isolation, a much less effective, but much easier technique used by interventional cardiologists.

He showed data demonstrating that when it came to innovative techniques, cure rate effectively did not matter to adoption, compared to the level of complexity of the new procedure.

He added that it was important for any new innovation to not “get too far away” from nature and its lessons, and that it should not be too complex to be routinely trained for and adopted.

Dr. Cox concluded with an admonition to new innovators to “listen to what your peers say. They have ideas, experiences, and imaginations of their own.”

He added that “they may or may not have anything to say that will change your course, but you have to listen to them.”

 

The first AATS Innovation Summit was launched on Saturday morning. The Summit was designed to assist cardiothoracic surgeons in developing new clinically applicable technology by giving them information on how to protect intellectual property, obtain funding, and conduct clinical trials. Attendees also got the latest updates on regulatory pathways and advice on building industry relationships needed to forge a novel product.

Pedro J. del Nido, MD, who was instrumental in coming up with the original idea for the Summit, introduced former AATS President W. Randolph Chitwood Jr., MD, who served as Program Director.

Courtesy Martin Allred

Dr. Chitwood, of East Carolina University, said that the Innovation Summit was already successful in that there were more than five times as many attendees as had been originally planned for.

“The most fun part of this meeting,” Dr. Chitwood promised, would be the Commercialization Workshop at the end of the day “where we develop a fictitious product and carry it all the way to commercialization.”

Michael J. Mack, MD, a famous innovator in his own right, opened the didactic portion of the program by outlining the Summit Challenges.

Courtesy Martin Allred

Dr. Mack, of the Baylor Health Care System, detailed what he saw as the essential steps to innovation and the direction he saw that innovation was taking.

“The whole field of cardiac surgery is moving to a catheter-based approach,” he declared.

He pointed out the tremendous growth in the invention of catheter-based products in the mitral regurgitation space. “The field is fertile with innovators,” he added.

In order to be innovative, he said, quoting what he called the Bavaria Rules, after Joseph E. Bavaria, MD, “You’ve got to have a vision; you’ve got to have a strategy; you need the tactics to implement that strategy, and at the end of the day, you have to execute that strategy.”

He concluded his talk saying, “Our field has a legacy of innovation. Our challenge is to adopt the tools to move that innovation field forward that our specialty has always been known for.”

Courtesy Martin Allred

In his morning keynote address, James L. Cox, MD, of Washington University, spoke on “Surgeon Innovators and the Innovation Imperative.”

He listed some of the major innovations in the cardiac space over the past 60+ years, from the beginning of aortic surgery, to mitral valve surgery, the Maze procedure, and even TAVR, pointing out that historically at least 10-20 years has been the lag time between the development of the innovation and its more-or-less widespread adoption, following the so-called S-curve.

The next stage of innovation is not starting from scratch, he said, but rather the recognition that the previous innovation can be improved upon, and the beginning of a new innovation S-curve at the peak of the old, a process of continual development and refinement.

Dr. Cox stressed that for innovation to be adopted, it couldn’t be overly complex, citing the Maze procedure for atrial fibrillation, which was highly superior to the alternatives for treating AF, but has still lagged behind pulmonary vein isolation, a much less effective, but much easier technique used by interventional cardiologists.

He showed data demonstrating that when it came to innovative techniques, cure rate effectively did not matter to adoption, compared to the level of complexity of the new procedure.

He added that it was important for any new innovation to not “get too far away” from nature and its lessons, and that it should not be too complex to be routinely trained for and adopted.

Dr. Cox concluded with an admonition to new innovators to “listen to what your peers say. They have ideas, experiences, and imaginations of their own.”

He added that “they may or may not have anything to say that will change your course, but you have to listen to them.”