Therapy and Healthcare Delivery Innovation

Sudden cardiac arrest (SCA) is among the leading killers of Americans, claiming an estimated 350,000 people each year. More people die of sudden cardiac arrest than breast, lung, colon, and prostate cancer combined, and more than 90 percent of people who experience SCA die.

The HeartRescue Project online Save-a-Life Simulator promotes proper and timely bystander response to SCA. First person point-of-view videos put the viewer in the shoes of an everyday mall-goer who witnesses a person experiencing SCA. The “choose-your-own-adventure” style of the interactive experience allows viewers to decide the fate of the victim by making critical choices, starting with an initial decision to help the victim or ignore the situation.

Through the online experience, the HeartRescue Project is trying to instill a basic response mindset: call 911, start chest compressions immediately and use an AED if available.

Initiated and funded by the Medtronic Foundation, the HeartRescue Project is designed to improve how SCA is recognized, treated and measured in the United States. HeartRescue partners work to improve SCA survival rates by expanding and replicating successful city and county out-of-hospital cardiac arrest response programs to statewide levels.

To learn more, visit the HeartRescue Project.

Medtronic engineers continue to push the boundaries of innovative care through the development of miniaturized devices and minimally invasive procedures that have the potential to increase access to patients who previously may not have been candidates for our therapies.

Our engineers currently are working on ground-breaking therapies such as leadless pacemakers that offer less-invasive implantation techniques, disposable insulin pumps with the potential to serve patients with lower incomes, and drug-delivery breakthroughs for treating Alzheimer’s disease.

To address growing healthcare needs in emerging markets, Medtronic is dedicating both financial and human resources to increase the company’s internal capabilities to design, test and scale new business models, such as our Healthy Heart for All initiative in India (see story below), quickly and efficiently.

The company is creating innovative processes and systems to guide market research, idea generation, piloting, refinement and roll out, with the goal of increasing access to life-enhancing therapies in developing countries. As part of this commitment, we are opening an international Business Model Innovation department in our International Headquarters located in Singapore during fiscal year 2012.

A Medtronic initiative piloted in several cities across, India, Healthy Heart for All has successfully increased patient access to cardiac therapies. Public awareness campaigns guided individuals toward several entry points to the Healthy Heart for All care network, which included health hotlines, patient counselors, heart screenings and other outreach activities. In addition, the Healthy Heart for All team worked closely with partner hospitals to develop a tiered service offering and financing programs that improve affordability.

Device implants to treat patients with cardiac rhythm disease and cardiovascular conditions more than doubled during the pilot period. Medtronic plans to rollout the initiative to other locations in India during fiscal year 2012.

With support from the Medtronic Foundation, WiRED International is developing a Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) registry to monitor patients in 13 African countries. The registry will promote effective delivery of antibiotics that can prevent RHD from progressing and enables researchers to obtain epidemiological data that is needed to better understand the disease, plan effective interventions and advocate for health resource allocations.

WiRED's RHD platform will facilitate creation of a global RHD database that will enable all countries to compile and track their information in the same manner. WiRED is also working with the World Heart Federation to disseminate best practices and lessons learned in the RHD realm.