Heidi C. Gonzalez
Abstract
Nurses are by nature entrepreneurs although wedon’t typically think of ourselves in this manner.A gap exists in nursing provider knowledge on theprocess and pathway to medical devicedevelopment. This talk will the highlight thepathways to production that are required andsuggest partnerships that are little known to careproviders to facilitate device development. This presentation outlines the steps and stages ofdevice development from protecting intellectualproperty to licensing and manufacturing theproduct. This will provide a guide for thoseinterested, who have ideas for medical devices orimprovements on current devices. Very limitedliterature is available on the entire process and asthis area is not one typically taught in nursingprograms, a knowledge deficit is present forpotential inventors or entrepreneurs.The development process will be brought to lightand offer suggestions on common areas wherestumbling blocks persist, such as funding andlicensing in the later stages of development. Thedesired state is one that allows nurses a beginningto moderate level of knowledge on the process andpathways to be successful in medical devicedevelopment from one patented developer’s,