It is often falsely believed that innovation pays for itself. Yet, medical R&D is expensive and for most hospitals innovation is a cost center, often even a money sink. Why is innovation a cash cow in industry but does not translate into revenues and growth in medical centers?
Busy organizing for continuous improvement in your professional service organization? Both in healthcare and in the legal industry there are some great examples of how to embed continuous improvement in the fabric of your organization. Is the same infrastructure also suitable to foster innovation and new business development?
On average, hospitals need to reduce costs by 5-10% in order to survive current pressures & changes. Such costs reductions are attainable, but only when physicians are engaged in these improvement trajectories. Then, it is impossible to unlock a hospital’s true potential. How engage physicians in such a way that it benefits all involved, i.e. physicians, hospital management and patients alike?
Innovation to keep up with the changes in technology is an imperative in nearly every industry nowadays. However, in spite of all the experience and expertise developed with regard to innovation and new product development in the past 30 to 50 years, most innovation projects still fail. Time to change how we innovate…
If you are not yet convinced that quality improvement is the responsibility of every healthcare provider, please watch the video created by IHI in collaboration with Dr. Mike Evans, Associate Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of Toronto.
There are three sciences which all have the same overall objective, advance healthcare: Basic, Clinical & Translational, and Implementation science. Is it wise to maintain this split, because each has a significant different focus? Or would it be better if these three sciences came together, as they strive for the same goal?
Value-based medical care is a hot topic in the US health system. Determining value is not easy, but whatever the definition, it implies balancing quality and cost. What is the role of innovation in this new paradigm? This blog explores the concept of value-based innovation in the medical domain. This domain is chosen as example, as the issue is most pressing there; too few research ideas make it to medical practice, the development of new drugs and devices is too expensive and time consuming, making health care unaffordable in the future.
In the innovation management literature, business model innovation is the new buzzword. What is it, how is it different from other types of innovation, and is it applicable to the health care and legal industries?
Primary Care is key to the health care system. Yet, in spite of its importance, primary care is confronted with many challenges. Interestingly, very different approaches are used to address these challenges. There is a movement that strives to put the physician back at the center of care, referred to as the Familiar Physician. At the other end of the spectrum there are Retail Clinics, which basically eliminate primary care physicians by replacing them with nurse practitioners in retail stores.
Medical innovation centers are becoming increasingly popular, as a recent article in the Washington Post attests. Every health care center or system should have such a center, because it signals that the institute cares about, and works hard to provide better care for their patients. What does it take to ensure medical innovation centers contribute to improved patient care?
Does innovation happen like magic? No, innovation takes a lot of hard work. However, according to Stefan Thomke, professor at the Harvard Business School, innovation and magic have more in common than you think.
The Resource Curse Thesis was developed in the 1990-ties by Richard Auty. Resource rich countries, countries with an abundance in natural resources, are poorer and have slower growing economies than resource poor countries. Does the same apply to innovation? Are resource poor firms, or innovators, better at innovation than those who have abundant resources?