Exploratory Study on the Success Factors of Rehabilitation Medical Device Cluster

Purpose - As Korea is reaching a post-aged society, the number of chronic illness is increasing, and the demand for rehabilitation medical device is growing. Although there is high potential for the growth in rehabilitation industry, because most of the related companies in Korea are relatively small, lacking capital or R&D resource, it is difficult for them to create an innovative product, and currently most of the high-tech equipments are imported. Therefore a medical device cluster, where business, research, medical institutes and universities may work cooperatively to enhance research development and solve issues is necessary for future development. Research design, data, methodology - In this method we have done a literature review of the rehabilitation industry and industrial cluster. Based on the studies, we have conducted an exploratory factor analysis by studying examples of foreign and domestic medical clusters and drawing success factors in forming a medical cluster. Next based on the studies we have conducted a survey to domestic medical device companies to find their difficulties and needs to form a successful medical device cluster. Results - This paper provides both theoretic review on success factors of forming a medical device cluster and practical analysis using case study and survey. Conclusion - The significance of this paper is that based on the literature review, we have compared actual examples of domestic/foreign medical clusters and drawn difference and coincidence between literature and actual cluster success factor. We were also able to conduct a survey on actual medical device companies and through the results we were able to search difficulties and necessities of medical device companies.