Stryker

Stryker is based in Kalamazoo. Its orthopedic business sells hips, the Triathlon knee, trauma plates, and spine products, and Mako is the robotic arm that helps surgeons prepare the bone for those specific implants.

Zimmer Biomet, Johnson & Johnson's DePuy Synthes, and Smith & Nephew bid the same joint-replacement contracts. The robot is capital equipment approved by the hospital's surgery leadership, and the implants then flow as physician-preference items under a GPO price.

MedSurg products, including beds and stretchers, are a separate capital cycle sold to facilities managers rather than to orthopedic surgeons. A hospital can be a Stryker joint customer and a different vendor's bed customer, but the Mako-plus-implant link is tighter than that.

Each Mako placement is a multi-year implant commitment because the saw and the implant are designed together.

Trauma and joint trays in the sterile core are brand-specific, so instrument sets occupy storage and staff time.

Bed and stretcher replacements follow facility budgets that do not move with the orthopedic contract.

Surgeons trained on Mako lose that workflow if the hospital later standardizes on another robot.

Patients rarely see the brand, but the implant on the shelf is the one the robot was purchased to accept.