In Lake Forest, California, medical device leader David Ferrera outlines a simple, repeatable system for transforming everyday problems into workable innovations.

LAKE FOREST, CA / ACCESS Newswire / January 21, 2026 / A few years ago, a young interventional radiologist kept a running list on his phone of things that slowed him down in the procedure room. A stubborn device that took too long to set up. A workflow step that always required an extra pair of hands. None of it felt big enough to be a "company idea," so the list just kept growing.

Only when a patient case ran longer than planned, forcing him to cancel the next procedure, did he decide to act. With guidance from an experienced engineer and founder, he picked one recurring problem, shaped it into a single product concept, and followed a structured process that took it from sketch, to prototype, to early clinical use. What started as a private frustration became a small but meaningful improvement for patients and staff in his hospital.

"Most people underestimate how far a simple, persistent problem can take them if they treat it like a project instead of a complaint," says David Ferrera, CEO of RC Medical and Sonorous Neuro. "The hard part is not idea generation. It is creating a clear path from the procedure room, or workplace, to a working solution."

The Problem Is Bigger Than One Story

Across industries, the pattern is familiar. People see issues every day, but few turn them into structured, solvable projects. In healthcare and technology, this has real costs.

Ferrera points to three common gaps.

"First, there is no consistent way for people on the front line to capture and rank their ideas," he explains. "Second, many teams jump from idea to product too fast, without a testing phase. Third, they rarely define what success looks like before they start."

Research on innovation and workplace improvement supports the scale of the challenge:

  • Studies suggest the majority of employees report seeing problems at work that they believe leadership never hears about.

  • Only a small percentage of employee ideas in most organizations ever move into a formal pilot or test.

  • In healthcare and medtech, development timelines can run five to ten years, which makes early missteps costly and discouraging.

  • Surveys of clinicians with product ideas show that most never take a single formal step toward development, often due to lack of a simple roadmap.

"People think innovation has to be massive, or it is not worth pursuing," Ferrera says. "In reality, sustained progress comes from many small, deliberate fixes that add up over time."

Copy This Framework: Five Phases To Turn Problems Into Progress

Ferrera has distilled his experience across companies like MindFrame, Blockade Medical, and RC Medical into a simple five phase framework that anyone can adapt.

  1. Capture and cluster
    Write down every recurring problem you see for two weeks. No judging. No editing. Then group them into clusters such as time delays, safety risks, communication gaps, or equipment issues.

  2. Score and select
    Give each problem a simple score: frequency, impact, and solvability. Pick one problem that ranks high in all three and commit to working on that first. "One focused problem beats ten half started projects every time," Ferrera notes.

  3. Map the reality
    Walk through the current workflow step by step. Who is involved. What tools are used. Where delays or errors show up. Capture this in a one page map. The goal is to see the system, not just the symptom.

  4. Prototype the simplest fix
    Design the smallest possible change that could improve the situation. This might be a checklist, a layout change, a simple tool, or a script for a key conversation. "If your first version needs a committee and a budget, it is probably too big," says Ferrera.

  5. Test, measure, and decide
    Try the change in a controlled way for a set period. Measure one or two outcomes that matter, like minutes saved, error rate, or stress on the team. Keep it, adjust it, or drop it based on those results, then move to the next problem on your list.

Quick Wins You Can Try This Week

Ferrera recommends a few simple actions to build momentum.

  • Start a "problem log" in a notebook or note app and add to it daily.

  • Pick a single 15 minute window each week to review and cluster issues.

  • Choose one small problem that affects only your immediate team and design a tiny experiment around it.

  • Share your one page workflow map with a colleague and ask what you missed.

  • Document results from any change, even if they are modest.

"Success is often just making improvement routine instead of reactive," Ferrera says. "You do not need permission to start observing and adjusting your own work."

Red Flags That Your Efforts Might Stall

He also points to warning signs that a change project may be in trouble.

  • The problem statement keeps changing every time you talk about it.

  • You cannot explain your proposed fix in one or two sentences.

  • No one is responsible for tracking results.

  • The only metric you are watching is how "busy" people feel.

  • You jump to a new idea before finishing the current test cycle.

"When those red flags show up, stop and reset," Ferrera advises. "Going slower with a clear goal usually beats racing ahead without one."

Ferrera's message is simple. You do not need a title, a budget, or a business plan to start acting on the problems you see. You need a structure, a timeline, and the discipline to learn from small experiments.

"Pick one problem this week, run it through the five phases in a lightweight way, and see what happens," he says. "If you do that every month for a year, your definition of success will start to shift from abstract goals to concrete progress."

He encourages readers to adapt the framework to their own field and to treat each cycle as practice. Over time, the skills that drive device startups and clinical innovation can apply just as readily to personal workflows, small businesses, and community projects.

About David Ferrera
David Ferrera is an American engineer, entrepreneur, inventor, and medical device executive based in Lake Forest, California. He is the CEO of RC Medical, a venture studio that funds, designs, develops, and commercializes products for interventional radiology, and the co-founder, chairman, and CEO of Sonorous Neuro. Over nearly 30 years in the medical device industry, he has helped build and lead multiple companies in stroke and neurovascular care and is listed as an inventor on more than 80 United States and international medical device patents.

SOURCE: David Ferrera



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