Carefusion

Carefusion

AVAmax® PLUS – Automating Vertebroplasty

CarefusionThe current state of the bone cement surgical hand tool used in vertebroplasty procedures was pretty basic and had a plethora of problems. Use of current products involved engaging in an arduous process that required cement ingredients to be mixed by hand in an open container and manually transferred into the delivery device. Insight observed dozens of procedures and analyzed the surgical workflows to identify ways to make the process easier, predictable, and repeatable. The resulting AVAmax® PLUS bone cement delivery system is the only fully enclosed and automated system on the market today.

A Process That Stinks

The old mixing process was dreaded by doctors and nurses because of the pressure to get the mix done correctly, quickly, and to the proper viscosity. The manual nature of the process made it inherently unpredictable; the noxious odor created when the substances were mixed only made matters worse. Insight’s research documented this challenging workflow and identified a key opportunity area for innovation: an automated solution that would provide a controlled mix of the materials inside a sealed and sterile closed loop system.

From Complex to Simple

CarefusionCareFusion’s Senior Marketing Manager says: “From a clinician standpoint, it really drives
consistency which is very important to the doctors because they want to know that from case to case the cement is going to perform the same way, and one of the ways that is accomplished is the way you mix it. So having an automated system really streamlines the operation. From the tech perspective (those that are mixing up the cement) it proves to be very valuable because it takes less time and less manual intervention.” This innovative solution is widely considered the benchmark delivery solution in the industry.

“We have grown our market share, and within CareFusion more than 50% of our customers that buy products for vertebroplasty buy the AVAmax® PLUS, which is pretty phenomenal for that product. AVAmax® PLUS is definitely one of the key differentiators between us and our competition. It is definitely one of the products that our reps focus on when positioning our products with customers.”
– Jennifer Jones,
Senior Marketing Manager, CareFusion

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