Illustrative case study · Healthcare & Life Sciences
A two-way EHR link moves a new pump from third to first.
A medical device maker had to decide whether its next infusion pump would ship on schedule or wait for two-way EHR integration. We interviewed 200 nursing and biomedical leaders who choose hospital pumps and delivered the report in 20 days.
Illustrative example. The company, scenario, and all figures are fictional. They show UserCue’s method and deliverable format. They do not come from any client study.
The engagement
Illustrative scenariodays, with the report, the data file and a live readout.
Each had sat on a hospital pump selection committee in the last three years.
110 nursing leaders and 90 biomedical engineering leaders.
12 choice tasks of three pump profiles plus none, five-year cost in each.
A medical device maker
Whether to hold its next pump for two-way EHR integration
Launch planning, with a ship date already on the calendar
AI-moderated interviews with a 12-task choice-based conjoint
Attribute importance, preference segments, simulated share
Committee leaders at hospitals that run pump fleets of every size
Headline figures
of pump choice rests on two-way EHR integration, ahead of five-year cost at 33%
of 200 leaders fall in the integration-first segment, about six in ten of each role
for the new pump with two-way integration, against 22% with a one-way link
The question
Should the next pump wait for the EHR link?
The next pump could make its ship date with a one-way EHR link, which sends pump data to the patient record. Two-way integration also sends the order from the record to the pump, and it needed more engineering time. The device maker had to know whether the hospitals that buy pumps would wait for it.
Which features decide which pump a hospital buys?
Do nursing and biomedical leaders trade those features the same way?
What share would the new pump win with two-way EHR integration, and without it?
What we did
How the study ran, start to finish.
- 1Kickoff
The two-way link would miss the ship date.
The device team came to kickoff with a ship date and a hunch that biomedical leaders would trade the link for price. The researcher framed three questions: what decides pump choice, whether the two roles weigh it alike and what share the link is worth.
- 2Design
Two committee roles, a 12-task conjoint.
Only leaders who had sat on a pump selection committee in the last three years qualified: 110 nursing and 90 biomedical. Each saw 12 tasks of three pump profiles plus none, varying the EHR link, battery, weight, fleet updates and five-year cost.
- 3Fielding
Leaders who chose none said why.
Every none choice drew a follow-up on what was missing; interviews ran by voice or text, quant and qual in one conversation, median 42 minutes. The researcher read all 227 and removed 27 for rushed responses, duplicate identities or no committee seat, leaving 200.
- 4Analysis
Biomedical leaders wanted the link too.
A latent class model on the conjoint choices split the 200 leaders by what they gave up, into integration-first and cost-first segments. Biomedical leaders joined the integration-first segment as often as nursing leaders did: 63% against 61%, 124 leaders in all.
- 5Readout
35% with two-way, 22% with one-way.
At the live readout, the researcher ran the simulator with the device team, one-way against two-way, then walked through the 37-page report, both segment profiles and the full data file. The ship date moved so the pump could launch with two-way integration.
What we found
Four findings from the report.
Two-way EHR integration carries 37% of pump choice, more than five-year cost at 33%. Biomedical leaders want it as much as nursing leaders do: about six in ten of each role sit in the integration-first segment. In the share simulator, two-way integration moves the new pump from third to first, with 35% share against two rival pumps, up from 22% with a one-way link.
Two-way EHR integration leads the choice, ahead of cost.
Two-way EHR integration carries 37% of the choice; five-year cost per channel carries 33%. Battery life follows at 21%; weight and wireless fleet updates trail at 5% and 4%. Nursing and biomedical leaders rank the top three in the same order.
Attribute importance, share of the choice · top 4 of 5 · n = 200Two segments weigh the link and cost in opposite ways.
Integration-first leaders (124) put 54% of their choice on the EHR link and 22% on cost. Cost-first leaders (76) reverse it: 51% on cost and 9% on the link. Battery life weighs the same in both.
Attribute importance by segment · n = 124 vs n = 76Biomedical leaders want the link as much as nursing leaders do.
The integration-first segment holds 61% of nursing leaders and 63% of biomedical leaders, a gap well inside the margin of error. Biomedical leaders want the link for the pump-use data it would feed their fleet planning, data their teams now gather by hand.
Two-way integration moves the new pump from third to first.
Against Pumps A and B, with none allowed and five-year cost held level with Pump A, the new pump takes 35% share with two-way integration and 22% with a one-way link. Pump A falls from 42% to 33%, and none from 9% to 5%.
“If the pump can’t take the order straight from the chart, my nurses are still typing at the bedside. That’s the one thing I won’t give up.”Nursing director · Illustrative quote
Illustrative quotes
Three themes behind the numbers.
“Two-way is the whole point. A one-way link just tells the record what we already did by hand.”
“I carry the service budget for every pump in the building. I still want the link, because right now my techs walk the floors to find out which pumps get used.”
“None of those would talk to our record system both ways, so none of them would get past our committee.”
What the device maker did
Three moves made with the report.
Held the launch for the two-way link.
The pump launches with two-way EHR integration, the version the simulator puts at 35% share against 22% with a one-way link.
Sold the link to both roles.
Sales materials pair the bedside case for nursing leaders with the fleet-data case for biomedical leaders, the reason each role gave.
Held five-year cost level with Pump A.
With cost-first leaders putting 51% of their choice on cost, the team kept the five-year cost per channel level with Pump A and charged nothing extra for the link.
Illustrative example. The company, scenario, and all figures are fictional. They show UserCue’s method and deliverable format. They do not come from any client study.
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