The Effect of Collaborative Relationship between Medical Doctors and Engineers on the Productivity of Developing Medical Devices

Previous research on medical devices research and development (R&D) paid close attention to the role of medical doctors as users of medical devices, but they did not examine enough the interdisciplinary collaboration between medical doctors and engineers as a team of developing a medical device. In this paper, I looked at the effect of collaborative relationship between medical doctors and engineers on the productivity of the development based on interviews on R&D of artificial retina and bibliometric analysis on R&D of cochlear implant. In the interviews with medical doctors and engineers involved in R&D of artificial retina in the United States, Germany, and Japan, we found that medical doctors and engineers perceive that the collaboration is one of the key factors to the success in inventing and developing medical devices, but that the good collaborative relationship is difficult to maintain. Next we examined such collaboration quantitatively by conducting bibliometric analysis of research articles and patents related to the development of cochlear implant, and found the important role played by medical doctors and their collaboration with engineers when designing and improving the medical device, and that more collaboration between medical doctors and engineers is seen in the more productive R&D group. Considering those findings, development of a medical device needs not only the ‘user‐led’ forces of medical doctors but also close interdisciplinary collaboration between medical doctors and engineers as a team. For such collaborative team effort to succeed, absorptive capacity of both sides and proximity between them are important, while there are barriers between a medical doctor and an engineer including cognitive, organizational, social, and institutional factors. To overcome those barriers, experiences of cooperation, education, geographic proximity, good leadership, or member's personality can promote some elements of proximity to compensate for lack or shortage of other elements of proximity.