By connecting with local businesses, keeping a busy schedule to benefit the area community and using his clinical experience to invent new devices, Dr. Bharat Shah is a leader among a new brand of doctors building health care from the ground up.
Given Shah's varied roles - he's section chairman and plastic surgeon with Mercy Clinic Plastic Surgery; medical director of Mercy Medical Spa; the only doctor on the board of Mercy Resource Optimization & Innovation; and a driving force behind Mercy Research & Development - he sees the benefit in working with local businesses to develop health care products.
"That's a priority for us, to first look locally, to see if we can get somebody who can help us with our designs, our prototypes, our marketing materials," Shah said of Mercy R&D, which operates out of Jordan Valley Innovation Center. "Any of the things that our local businesses can help us with, we try to get engaged with them."
Shah, the featured guest this morning at Hilton Garden Inn for Springfield Business Journal's monthly 12 People You Need to Know series, pointed to Aire-Master of America in Nixa, which produces for Mercy the alcohol-free hand sanitizer Hands First. Shah said Mercy R&D also is in talks with a local manufacturer for Safety Shield, a device designed to prevent accidental needle sticks.
Currently, there are 24 projects in the pipeline at Mercy R&D. Shah said projects can range from as low as $15,000 to as high as $60,000.
"The costs are different for each project because some are very low-tech and very easy to make a quick prototype," he said. "The ones that require more manufacturing and testing are going to have a little higher cost. Then there's the costs associated with filing patents and maintaining intellectual property protection."
Mercy R&D also is getting to the point where it can transfer projects to other companies, which can assume the next stage of development, such as manufacturing costs and testing. Shah said this allows a larger investment and, potentially, a larger impact.
Shah demonstrates his inventions.
Soule Medical LLC in Lutz, Fla., last week signed licensing contracts for Shah's own inventions, Secure Flip Pediatric Dual Positioner - which allows physicians to efficiently switch infants' positions during spina bifida surgeries - and the Secure360 Prone Positioning Device, which cuts the positioning process for infant cranial surgeries to about three minutes from 45.
"I think I see a bigger picture where you can help more people by enhancing your abilities to improve the delivery of health or improve how doctors do operations around the country. You can help one person at a time, or you can help many, and I'd like to help many," Shah said. "When you like so many things, and you're passionate about each one of those things, you find the energy to do it."
Shah said he realizes the need for health care organizations to analyze how they spend money as health reforms come down the pike.
He shares that vision as clinical adviser to Mercy ROI, the health system's group purchasing organization. The group's warehouse in north Springfield is the central point in Mercy's supply chain, and it processes orders for beds, bandages, and plates and screws systemwide.
"You can make a big impact by saving money by giving patients what they need, but with lower costs," Shah said. "One way is to make every procedure more efficient, and then the other way is to try to limit the costs of everything else associated with those procedures. We can still deliver that care, but we can cut the costs."[[In-content Ad]]
Moseley’s Discount Office Products was purchased; Side Chick opened in Branson; and the Springfield franchise store of NoBaked Cookie Dough changed ownership.
