It’s Complicated: Mobility Management Podcast Discusses CRT’s Relationship with Innovation

• By Laurie Watanabe
• Mar 24, 2022

The Complex Rehab Technology (CRT) industry is driven by innovation, with the ultimate goal of achieving the best functional outcomes for people with significant, often progressive disabilities.

So why is CRT’s relationship with innovation so complicated?

In Mobility Management’s latest podcast, Barry Dean and Jered Dean — co-founders of LUCI — share what they learned while creating their smart power wheelchair technology and bringing it to market.

Along the way, the Deans — initially driven by the goal of creating safer power chair driving for Barry’s daughter, Katherine, who was born with cerebral palsy — met and collaborated with clinicians, suppliers, families, and manufacturers.

And in launching LUCI, the Deans learned how challenging it is to successfully innovate in CRT… and why.

“We say we build to the need, not to the code,” Jered said in the podcast. “That was from the very beginning, and it was really easy, because we have family members using wheelchairs. So this never started from a market analysis or spreadsheet. This started from a lived need in our family.

“That’s been able to keep the goals really clear from the very beginning. We did it backwards in that way. In all the ways regarding the end product, that’s been a positive way. But in then being able to bring that technology to users more broadly in the market, there’s a reason that a lot of the companies build to the codes.”

“There are several mindsets that serve as a barrier, roadblock, whatever you want to call it, towards innovation,” Barry said. “If a clinician has a passive mindset towards seating and mobility — ‘I’ll just let the sales ATP handle that’ — that’s a roadblock to innovation because they won’t be advocating for the client.”

Listen to the newest podcast, and check out the entire Mobility Management podcast library.