There is a question that has been on my mind recently and it has to do with innovation in healthcare. A friend of mine who works in a different industry asked me “So where is innovation happening in healthcare?”.
In response, I rhymed off several interesting products and organizations. After politely listening to me drone on, he said something that has stuck with me: “Those all sound like wonderful things that people are doing to make healthcare better, but it really doesn’t sound like any of them are doing anything to really change healthcare and make it different. I thought you all would have come up with something that would be different. We still go see the local doctor when we get sick. That’s how it’s been for more than a thousand years.”
While I would argue that going to see the local “doctor” who might give you some unknown, untested tincture to drink with your mead isn’t quite the same as going to the local Urgent Care Clinic to get a blood test done, my friend’s comments got me thinking about innovation in healthcare.
Where is it happening?
Innovation in Healthcare is Hard
In Herzlinger’s excellent article from 2006, she breaks down why innovation is so difficult in healthcare: “Despite this enormous investment in innovation and the magnitude of the opportunity for innovators to both do good and do well, all too many efforts fail, losing billions of investor dollars along the way”
She lists 6 forces that affect healthcare innovation:
- Players / Stakeholders
- Funding complexity
- Regulation and policies
- Technology
- Customers
- Accountability
I think Herzlinger’s description of the multitude of stakeholders rings as true today as it did in 2006: “The health care sector has many stakeholders, each with an agenda. Often, these players have substantial resources and the power to influence public policy and opinion by attacking or helping the innovator… Patient advocates seek influence with policy makers and politicians, who may have a different agenda altogether—namely, seeking fame and public adulation through their decisions or votes.”
I agree with Herzlinger that the size and complexity of stakeholders makes it very difficult to innovation to happen at scale in healthcare. I think it, along with regulation, keeps innovation happening in pockets in healthcare rather than across the entire ecosystem.
Telehealth Example
A recent example of this is telehealth. While we could argue whether or not this was truly innovative, it was a brand new way to deliver care and help many patients who did not have easy access before. For a while it was fully funded by CMS and other funding bodies around the world. But as the pandemic has waned, many jurisdictions are reverting back to pre-pandemic reimbursement models where physicians receive less compensation for a telehealth visit vs an in-person one. You can guess the impact this is having on the number of telehealth visits.
In addition, during the pandemic, there was a relaxation of the regulations restricting physicians from treating patients outside of the places where they are licensed. To my knowledge, there has been no clinical evidence that being treated by a doctor who lives one state over is any worse or more risky than one from the state where I live. Yet, those regulations are coming back into effect now that the pandemic is over. Another barrier to innovation.
The Questions
I thought it would be interesting for the #hcldr community to discuss the barriers to innovation and the nature of innovation in healthcare. What should innovation in healthcare look like? What are the biggest barriers? Where is innovation happening?
Join the #hcldr community on Tuesday August 1st at 8:30pm ET (for your local time click here). We will be discussing the following topics:
- Q1 Why is innovation in healthcare is so hard? What is the biggest barrier that stands in the way of real change?
- Q2 What does innovation in healthcare look like? Does it have to be disruptive or is innovation happening at a smaller scale that we haven’t noticed it?
- Q3 Where is innovation happening in healthcare today? What tech, approach, or organization do you think is innovative?
- Q4 What aspect of healthcare needs the most innovation right now? Why?
References
Herzlinger, Regina E. “Why Innovation in Health Care Is So Hard”, Harvard Business Review, May 2006, https://hbr.org/2006/05/why-innovation-in-health-care-is-so-hard, accessed 30 July 2023
Dixon-Woods M, Amalberti R, Goodman S, et al. “Problems and promises of innovation: why healthcare needs to rethink its love/hate relationship with the new”, BMJ Quality & Safety, 2011, https://qualitysafety.bmj.com/content/20/Suppl_1/i47, accessed 30 July 2023
Sidorov, Jaan. “Why Health Care Innovation Lags (And What To Do About It)”, Health Affairs, 3 August 2016, https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/why-health-care-innovation-lags-and-do, accessed 30 July 2023
Singh, Ranjan. “Why Healthcare Market Complexity Is A Reason To Innovate, Not A Reason Not To”, Forbes, 27 September 2021, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2021/09/27/why-healthcare-market-complexity-is-a-reason-to-innovate-not-a-reason-not-to/, accessed 30 July 2023
Cohen, Daniel. Furstenthal, Laura. Jansen, Leigh. “Healthcare innovation: Building on gains made through the crisis”, McKinsey & Company, 12 November 2020, https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/life-sciences/our-insights/healthcare-innovation-building-on-gains-made-through-the-crisis, accessed 30 July 2023
Donahue, Andrew. “Why the idea of disruption is so hard for healthcare leaders to understand”, HFMA, 13 March 2023, https://www.hfma.org/finance-and-business-strategy/why-the-idea-of-disruption-is-so-hard-for-healthcare-leaders-to-understand/, accessed 30 July 2023
Image Credit
Photo by Tima Miroshnichenko: https://www.pexels.com/photo/child-sitting-on-a-vr-simulator-ride-6498950/
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