A Vision for Relentlessly Innovative, Patient-Centered Medtech

Every era of health care has a defining challenge. Our challenge is not a lack of innovation; it’s whether innovation can reach patients fast enough, safely enough, and with global impact. As I begin my two-year term as chair of the AdvaMed Board of Directors, I do so at a moment of enormous promise, and real tension, for medical technology. Scientific breakthroughs are accelerating. AI, digital health, and connected devices are transforming how care is delivered. At the same time, outdated payment systems, geopolitical instability, and regulatory friction too often stand between patients and the technologies that could change their lives or even save their lives.

That is why AdvaMed’s work in the U.S. and around the globe matters. Over the past several years, including during my time chairing AdvaMed’s International Board Committee, I’ve had the opportunity to engage with policymakers in D.C., Brussels, Beijing, Tokyo, and beyond. Across health care systems and country cultures, the message is the same: Innovation succeeds only when policy keeps pace. Patients everywhere are counting on us to get that balance right. We must ensure that innovation doesn’t stall at the point where it matters most: when it can impact the lives of patients. That is why my priorities as chair are focused not on reinvention, but on continuous momentum that builds on the leadership of previous chairs of the AdvaMed Board: Pete Arduini, Ashley McEvoy, Mike Minogue, and Kevin Lobo, and many other amazing medtech leaders before them, while meeting the demands of today’s health care reality. I have five priorities that will anchor my time as chair; let me briefly walk through each of them.

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Mick Farrell’s Priorities as Chair of AdvaMed’s Board of Directors

1. Put Patients First — Always
2. Accelerate Digital Transformation
3. Expand Global Access
4. Bring Care Everywhere
5. Personalize Every Health Journey

1. Put Patients First — Always 

Patient-centered innovation is not a slogan; it is a discipline. It requires that we evaluate every decision, from research priorities to reimbursement timelines, through the lived experience of patients, physicians, providers, payers, and communities. But it all starts, and ends, with the patient at the center of the decision process.

Too often, patients wait years after FDA clearance of medtech and for payment coverage decisions to catch up to innovation cycles. That delay is not theoretical; it means postponed diagnoses, prolonged suffering, and missed chances to intervene earlier with preventative care. One of our core responsibilities as an industry is to close that gap so that safe, effective technologies move from clearance to access without unnecessary friction.

When we put patients first, innovation becomes personal, and policy becomes purposeful.

2. Accelerate Digital Transformation 

The future of health care is digital, and the future is now. AI and data-enabled technologies are no longer emerging – they are embedded in imaging, diagnostics, monitoring, and both acute as well as chronic disease therapy everywhere, every day.

It is important to note that transformation requires a foundation of trust. We must modernize regulatory and payment frameworks, so they reflect how care is delivered in a digital world, while holding firm on safety, privacy, and clinical rigor. AdvaMed’s innovation agenda recognizes this balance, calling for policies that enable responsible AI adoption, appropriate reimbursement for algorithm-based services, and a stronger digital health infrastructure at FDA and CMS.

Digital transformation isn’t about technology for its own sake. It’s about expanding access, lowering costs of health care delivery, improving outcomes, and empowering clinicians and patients with better information, and ultimately better health care, at the right moment.

3. Expand Global Access 

Medical technologies are essential, not optional, and patients should never become collateral damage in trade disputes or supply chain disruptions. Recent years have made clear how fragile global access can be. Supply chains disrupted by years of COVID policies on transport and travel. An increase in tariffs, export controls, and regulatory divergence threaten to slow or block the flow of lifesaving devices. As chair, I will continue to advocate for harmonized regulations, resilient supply chains, and trade policies that recognize the unique role medtech plays in patient care.

Global access is not just an economic issue. It is a moral one. Innovation that cannot cross borders cannot fulfill its promise.

4. Bring Care Everywhere 

Care is no longer provided at a fixed address. Patients overwhelmingly prefer care that meets them where they are: in hospitals, outpatient facilities, their homes, and beyond. Rapidly evolving technology now allows clinicians to deliver world-class care safely beyond the traditional walls of a hospital system. Lower cost, lower acuity settings like outpatient care and homecare need to be linked into the health care ecosystem.

Health systems need solutions that ensure high quality care, while increasing access to care where the patient is. Sadly, payment and policy structures often lag this emerging ecosystem. Aligning coverage and payment models with modern, omni-channel care delivery is one of the most powerful levers we have to improve access, comfort, cost, and outcomes simultaneously.

Care everywhere is not a future aspiration. It is already happening. Our job is to inform policy, and our technologies enable it to scale responsibly.

5. Personalize Every Health Journey 

In today’s world, we are personalizing care in remarkable ways – not just treating disease but supporting lifelong health.

Regulated medical devices, validated wearables, and intelligent software are converging to provide continuous insight into chronic conditions, recovery, and wellness. When combined with strong clinical evidence and ethical data stewardship, these tools can shift care from reactive to proactive, extending not just lifespan, but health span. Consumers are quantifying many aspects of their health care journey and leveraging AI to help interpret the data: We need to enable them to use the data for a personalized health care journey, in partnership with their clinicians.

Medtech must lead here. If we do not set the bar for validation, privacy, cybersecurity, and trust, others will, and patients will be left to sort hype from help.

Rising Together 

Serving as chair of AdvaMed is both an honor and a responsibility. Our industry sits at the intersection of science, policy, and human need. When we align those forces, the impact is extraordinary.

Over the next two years, I look forward to working with AdvaMed’s members, policymakers, regulators, and global partners to turn innovation into access, and access into better lives.

When we rise for patients, we rise together. And that is how we will build the next era of medtech: relentlessly innovative, globally connected, and always centered on the people we serve.

Michael “Mick” Farrell
Chairman and CEO, Resmed Inc. (NYSE: RMD, ASX: RMD)
Chair, AdvaMed Board of Directors