Interview with Marius Fourie

Managing Director,
Dräger

Briefly tell us about your organisation, the journey to date, and expertise, alongside your professional achievements in this role. 

Dräger is an Dräger is an international leader in the fields of medical and safety technology. Since 1889, Dräger products protect, support and save lives. As your Specialist in Acute Care, we are committed to supporting you in improving clinical outcomes, managing costs, enhancing patient experiences and ensuring staff satisfaction.

That is why, for over 130 years, we have been passionate about developing technologies,products, educational content, and services for acute care that can help our
customers to achieve their goals. Dräger South Africa (Pty) Ltd was registered for the 1st time as a legal entity in 1983.

We are a subsidiary of Drägerwerk AG & Co. KGaA and represents Dräger in the Southern and Sub-Sahara African region. We work closely with our accredited Sales Channel Partners in East and Sub-Sahara Africa to ensure a close relationship and provide personal service to our clients.

We have established an Authorized Education and Training Centre for the Southern Africa region, based at out of our head offices in Johannesburg. Our trainers are
certified by the parent company to provide application training on all Dräger products.

Our focus on innovation means our staff keeps abreast with the latest technology products and systems.

Africa Health is a one-stop destination for the region’s booming healthcare industry. What will your organisation showcase this year, and what opportunities are in store for visitors at the event?

Dräger is showcasing solutions for every Acute Care Area in the hospital. Our focus is on OR, ICU and NICU. With our new supply unit, the Ambia, we will be able to address the ever-challenging needs in hospital design. We are going to show our new Baby Warmer for the first time in the region. 

‘Connected Technologies— The Internet of Medical Things’: Our colleague, Michael Wilkening will further discuss this interesting topic as part of the Transformation Talks at the conference. 

Based on your observation, what are some of the key health challenges faced in the region and what solutions is your organisation bringing to the forefront in this regard?

In everything we do, we are passionate about improving acute care. We see opportunities for helping clinicians and hospitals deliver care more efficiently and achieve the best possible outcomes for their patients.

We have clustered these into four pillars:

  1. Protective Therapies: Our acute care therapy solutions for intensive, perioperative and neonatal care aim to contribute to reducing the incidence and severity of acute care-acquired weakness.
  2. Care-centred Workplaces: A well-designed healthcare workplace and environment can result in considerable improvements in clinical outcomes, economic performance, productivity as well as patient and staff satisfaction.
  3. Connected Technologies: We envision a future in which medical devices are connected as a system and are interacting with one another enabling new clinical applications in a safe and secure environment.
  4. Comprehensive Services: We know what it means to run an acute care facility with high-quality expectations where everyone and everything should work together, flawlessly.

That is why we do not just develop medical devices, we manufacture them as well and are highly familiar with all the functions, specifications, and technical details. Hence, we can offer fast, uncomplicated, and reliable services that fit to our customers individual needs.

As healthcare is constantly evolving, please tell us about your latest investments and ventures in terms of future-ready technology and innovation. Please elaborate.

We are committed to improving acute care with technologies that interface and share data to assist caregivers in making treatment decisions and delivering therapies in the most effective ways. We envision a future in which medical devices are connected as a system and are interacting with one another enabling new clinical applications in a safe and secure environment.

That is why we have decided to adopt the new ISO/IEEE11-73-SDC standard for medical device connectivity and we will implement it in our medical devices and system solutions moving forward.

What do you think are the major healthcare market segments expected to gain traction this year?

There will be different trends and developments throughout the continent. However, we believe data integration in a safe and secure way will play a big role in the future.

What are your organisational goals for 2023? If any, please highlight some of your recent and upcoming partnerships.

We are investing in the opening of regional support offices in Ghana and Kenia to be closer to our customers on the African continent. This way we are able to support our Sales Channel Partners and customers directly.

We are looking forward to welcoming our customers at Africa Health and finding solutions together for their unique challenges.