The Psychology Behind Medtech Adoption

Even when the stakes are life itself, change remains stubbornly difficult. As Melissa Davies, Head of Product, Engineering and Marketing at Dynamic Controls, shared at Canterbury Tech’s recent TechFest, sourced from Alan Deutschman that a staggering 90% of patients with severe heart disease fail to change their lifestyle after being told directly: if you don’t change, you will die .

This sobering statistic sets the stage for understanding one of the most persistent challenges in medical technology – the gap between innovation and adoption.

The Adoption Challenge

“Adoption isn’t just about logic, it’s also about psychology,” Davies explained. This fundamental insight helps explain why there’s a global challenge with medical non-adherence. This is when patients don’t follow recommended health treatments, be it like taking medication, using devices correctly, attending appointments, or making lifestyle changes as prescribed by their healthcare provider. Globally, it’s reported that up to 50% of people with chronic illnesses don’t take their medication as prescribed, costing healthcare systems globally over $500 billion annually in preventable hospital admissions and complications.

In New Zealand, non-adherence affects 20-30% of patients with long-term conditions like cardiovascular disease and diabetes. These statistics reveal a profound truth: knowing what to do and actually doing it are entirely different challenges.

As Davies put it: “We can have the prettiest vision board, the most detailed 12-week plan, all the reminders in our phones. But actually translating intention into action is where we often fall short.”

Beyond Product Development

For technology companies, particularly in the medtech space, this presents a critical lesson. Building excellent technology isn’t enough. Even understanding customer needs and designing solutions to meet them doesn’t guarantee success.

“What looks like pushback is often protection against uncertainty, loss of control, or fear of failure,” Davies noted. “In medtech, where change affects workflow, identity, safety and care, that resistance isn’t solved by more logic. It’s eased by empathy and trust.”

This insight challenges the traditional focus on product features and technical excellence. As Davies referenced from an EY report on the medtech sector: “Often there is too much focus on the product itself rather than getting a better understanding of the end users. Unclear perceived benefit by the end user leads to poor user adoption and subsequently lower revenue targets.”

The Complex Web of Decision-Making

In B2B medtech environments, adoption faces additional hurdles. Decisions rarely come down to a single person but involve a web of stakeholders – clinicians, IT procurement, finance executives, and regulatory bodies – each with different concerns and risk thresholds.

“One team wants clinical certainty, another wants operational simplicity. Someone’s focused on cost savings, and someone else is trying to protect reputation. And often everyone’s waiting for someone else to go first,” Davies explained.

Tools like the Miller Heiman framework can help by mapping who’s involved in decisions, what their roles are, and what drives them. This prevents wasting time trying to convince people who can’t actually say yes.

Trust as the Foundation

The continuous glucose monitor (CGM) story perfectly illustrates the adoption challenge. Despite FDA approval in 1999 as a breakthrough technology, widespread adoption took nearly two decades.

Why? The barriers weren’t primarily technical but human. The devices were bulky, triggered frequent alarms, required calibration, and many clinicians didn’t fully trust their accuracy. Patients often didn’t understand the benefits, and equity gaps meant inconsistent access.

“The barrier wasn’t entirely performance,” Davies explained. “It was trust and confidence. It was systemic and behavioural readiness.”

This applies even to seemingly simple technologies. Patient portals for GP clinics offer clear benefits – online appointments, test result viewing, reduced admin load – yet adoption has been slower than expected. In New Zealand, around 70% of GP clinics offer these portals, but uptake among those over 65 remains low.

As Davies emphasised: “In healthcare, trust isn’t a feature, it’s a foundation.”

Strategies for Successful Adoption

Davies shared several practical approaches to overcome adoption barriers:

Build internal champions

• Identify and support the natural early adopters within customer organisations
• Equip them with local proof, case studies, and endorsements from trusted figures
• Let them tell your story – their impact will be greater than any sales pitch

Create small, safe experiments

• Use pilots and limited rollouts to reduce perceived risk
• Generate fast feedback and create onboarding content
• Expose what breaks early, before full rollout where exposure is high

Craft targeted messaging

• Speak to the specific fears, motivations, and metrics that matter to each audience
• Use tools like value proposition canvas and needs-based personas
• Remember that you can’t rush belief – it builds one proof point at a time

Beyond the Launch Moment

The journey from innovation to impact requires patience and understanding of human psychology. As Davies concluded: “Adoption isn’t just a logical process, it’s an emotional, behavioural and systemic one. Trust, confidence and support matter just as much as functionality.”

For technology companies, especially in healthcare, this means shifting focus from the launch moment to the long road of adoption. It means recognising that even brilliant technology can fail if it doesn’t account for how humans actually embrace change.

The question Davies left us with serves as both challenge and opportunity: “How might you build a future where adoption of your innovation is both invited and welcomed?”

Because ultimately, that’s where the real impact lies.

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