MedCity Influencers

Physician innovators should remember human tendency to run from pain when building new solutions

I’m a born skeptic of conferences and the carousel of speakers that are on the […]

I’m a born skeptic of conferences and the carousel of speakers that are on the meeting circuit, but Converge — a one-day meeting earlier this month to discuss the convergence of technology and healthcare — was a refreshing change.

In addition to the obvious focus on the future of healthcare technology, attendees and speakers were drawn to two prevailing issues for the medtech and pharmaceutical industries: 1) how do we drive innovation to address healthcare reform’s focus on quality based solutions (i.e. no outcome, no income) rather than transaction based care, 2) how do innovators leverage the massive amount of patient and provider data that is becoming available to reduce healthcare costs and improve outcomes.

I was intrigued enough to attend the meeting, owing mostly to Healing Innovation’s relationship with the MedCityNews. The meeting didn’t disappoint. Some of the highlights from the meeting for me were as follows:

  1. Wil Yu, Director, Innovations, Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT, HHS, reinforced challenges in medical innovation by providing a history lesson on the resolution of Scurvy. Dr. Yu told the story of Captain James Lancaster who in the early 1600?s used his East India Company fleet of ships as a “controlled clinical experiment” on whether a few drops of lemon juice per day could prevent Scurvy in his crewmembers. Despite overwhelming evidence and his thorough documentation of the experiment, it was not until the 1800’s before citrus was implemented within the British navy, after approximately 1 million men had died from the nutritional deficiency. So, if you think the FDA is slow today, 200 years is a long PMA approval process. Dr. Yu’s point was that Invention is not equal to innovation. Innovation requires adoption and diffusion.
  2. A Technology Transfer break-out session provided some insightful thoughts on the tension between the university mission of publishing research and keeping inventions proprietary for out-licensing to corporate partners. Universities and their medical centers are struggling with their approach to tech transfer. Are they supposed to try to pick the winning technologies to push commercialization or more simply create a better fishbowl for innovation? For academic physician innovators, the panel made their opinion clear that the future of funding for medical innovation is not from venture capital but the medtech industry itself.
  3. A panel on Mobile Health provided for a lively discussion. Chris Wasden, Global Healthcare Innovation Leader at PWC, has overseen studies on patients and providers response to mobile health products. Dr. Wasden made the case that new mobile health solutions will cause disruption that is most painful to providers and that patients and payers are ready to adapt, but doctors will come kicking and screaming. The premise that inadequate physician compensation for supporting patient mobile health initiatives will be its demise was debunked, while lack of training and interruptions in workflow were identified as more impactful influences.
  4. Physician innovators need more training on entrepreneurship, so hearing from Steven Krein, Co-founder of StartUp Health and Karen Griffith Gryga, Managing Director, DreamIt Ventures was encouraging. StartUp Health has a form that interested entrepreneurs can fill out online to gain feedback on becoming part of their accelerator programs throughout the country. Even more encouraging was the opinion from Mr.Krein that despite venture capital firm negativity, there is plenty of funding available for great ideas from angel investors and other sources.
  5. Although I enjoyed the closing keynote speech on the innovation life cycle from Naomi Fried, Chief Innovation Officer, Boston Children’s Hospital, our 1-on-1 discussion in the taxi on the way to the airport made a greater impression. That’s because I understand the innovation lifecycle. We have blogged about the steps involved with bringing a concept through the various stages towards commercialization. Dr. Fried, however, provided me with her insights on clinician innovators. Despite Boston Children’s Hospital being regarded as one of the most innovative pediatric institutions with a multitude of programs and resources to support inventors, Dr. Fried described how she still has clinician inventors visit her daily with products that are struggling to bridge what she calls the O-Gap (operational gap between pilot and commercialization). Developing medical products is hard work and finding the right collaborators and supporters can be even more difficult.

My favorite thought of the meeting, from Dr. Wasden, was that human nature is to run from pain, but tip toe to opportunity. As physician innovators look for the prospects to make an impact on the future of healthcare, realize that solutions that address pain points will be rapidly and broadly accepted, while adoption of products that are simply better, in areas that are not currently under stress, will be more challenging and require greater resources and time.


Healing Innovation

Healing Innovation is a resource for clinician innovators. The main site - HealingInnovation.com - provides an overview of the various aspects and issues facing clinician innovators.

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