The TREAT Leadership Team is a group of clinicians, engineers, and business experts who guide the development of our programs and help innovators navigate the challenging commercialization process. After having been a part of the TREAT program over the last five years, we asked four of them to impart some wisdom they have gained. To meet the entire TREAT Leadership Team, visit our team webpage.
“Over the time of working with different entrepreneurs and across different projects through TREAT, I have come to appreciate the importance of developing a multi-disciplinary team and having additional advisors that represent the direction that the entrepreneur wants to go in.”
Christine McDonough, PT, PhD
Assistant Professor of Physical Therapy at the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences and in Orthopaedic Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.
“Whatever technical solution you develop you have to go through the process of understanding the market and understanding previous attempts at that kind of technology and those kinds of devices. One of the things that I live by is that if you have a great idea, there’s a great chance that someone’s already thought of it, and if that’s the case, then the real homework is to find out what happened to that idea before.”
Jerry Weisman, MSME, ATP, RET
Principal, Rehabilitation Technology Services
Past President of RESNA
“I think the big advantage to having a multi-disciplinary team approach is to be able to identify and understand any gaps or pitfalls or challenges earlier in the process and be able to address them.”
Karen Huyck, MD, PhD, MPH, FACOEM
Assistant Professor, Section of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center/Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
“I think it’s really important to communicate early with clinicians. If you have a good idea, you need to start that customer discovery as early as possible…What is the resistance of that provider to being open minded about your technology or device? What is the evidence that your approach needs to fulfill in order for clinicians to take that product seriously? And the sooner you start that customer discovery with the people who are going to be using your product (and sometimes that’s the patients themselves), the sooner you can address those concerns, the sooner you can frame the value of your device in the context of those concerns and start building interest from those stakeholder groups.”
Ryan Ratts, MD, PhD
Adult and Pediatric Hospitalist, Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center
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