Boston Scientific's Mission to Democratize Healthcare Access in Latin America

Boston Scientific, in the business of transforming lives through innovative medical solutions for over 40 years, engaged in a 10-week ExO Sprint to explore strategies for deploying their robust resources to improve healthcare access among the population in Latin America.

Why Boston Scientific Decided to Hire OpenExO

In 2018, Boston Scientific was a global medical technology leader serving over 30 million patients, but was encountering problems capturing customers in its Latin American market. That year, the company treated only 1.3 million people from Latin America’s population of 600 million people. Boston Scientific knew a different strategy was needed to acquire more customers, so they engaged ExO Works to discover innovative strategies to meet their customers’ needs.

The company set a goal of treating 10x more customers by 2023 in the Latin American region.

Boston Scientific’s Challenges Prior to the ExO Sprint

Due to regulations in the Latin American market, Boston Scientific was struggling to effectively deploy their resources to benefit a much larger population of patients but knew that improving access to information, care, and affordability was key to growing the market of consumers they impacted. They determined that improving consumer access as well as rethinking how they engaged and sold to the stakeholders were equally necessary to deliver their solution and increase revenues.

Prior to the sprint, innovative ideas and projects were primarily concentrated between two or three areas, and there was a lack of multi-level engagement in the successful implementation of innovative ideas. It was apparent that the company had the drive and creativity to innovate, but they did not have a structure in place to foster the growth of those innovations and bring them to market.

Boston Scientific’s Goals with the ExO Sprint

Within the initiation of the ExO Sprint, Boston Scientific created the MTP “Democratize access to care in Latin America.”

With this MTP in mind, their aim was to leverage emerging technologies and internal and external talent and develop processes that could drive initiatives from a disciplined, balanced portfolio approach during and beyond the ExO Sprint.

Boston Scientific’s ExO Sprint Execution & Solutions

ExO Sprint participants were led through the innovation process, during which they defined and developed internal innovative processes that helped the company identify customer needs and create marketable solutions for those needs.

During their journey, the participants created eight initiatives with the potential to change the company's current environment, its relationship with customers, and the entire healthcare ecosystem. Some ideas included telemedicine and health monitoring applications, mobile applications for virtual reality training, and health subscription services.

Another benefit of the Sprint was that it allowed for wider involvement in innovation, increasing collaboration and creativity within the organization. Participants were able to bring their knowledge back to different regions and act as innovation resources for their particular areas.

Follow Up

A year after the Sprint, Boston Scientific’s use of ExO methodology has helped the company create 15 additional active projects in the Latin American region alone right now.

Most initiatives are in their infant stages, although Covid-19 has accelerated a few of them, including a VR Learning Platform currently in use. This allows Boston Scientific to educate 19x more physicians at a 95% cost reduction in the rate per physician. The adoption of VR came at a crucial time for Boston Scientific, as Covid-19 necessitates online training, and Boston Scientific now offers one of the most effective methods.

In 2020, Boston Scientific premiered its first release of an end-to-end patient engagement solution called MyHealth for post-discharge Covid-19 patients in collaboration with a large insurer. The platform makes personalized medicine a reality for healthcare providers and patients by helping select the most appropriate treatment strategies that can deliver improved efficiencies and outcomes.

This summer, Boston Scientific Latin America released its BeyondCare platform, which incorporates elements from its original training initiatives into its Remote Solutions offerings.

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