The biggest challenge of innovation in healthcare is not so much in coming up with great ideas. It’s coming up with ideas that can fit into the systems for how providers are reimbursed and demonstrating they can improve patient outcomes.
On the other hand, innovation can be as simple and cost effective as providing small, achievable diet goals to improve a patient’s health that mimic gamification. It can also be providing mobile phones to pregnant women as part of a Medicaid program to ensure they can be reached for follow up care. Those were some of the critical points raised in a thoughtful TEDMED discussion Achieving more medical innovation more affordably.
The panel discussion moderated by John Nosta, an executive vice president, and senior strategist at Ogilvy CommonHealth Worldwide, lobbed questions at experts and took some from Twitter and Facebook in a discussion that talked about what’s driving innovation, what’s hindering it and how to make patient engagement a bigger priority.
One of the first questions brought up was on patient engagement. How important is engaging the patient to be a more active player in their care?
If it doesn’t matter to the patient, the “innovation” is not helpful. Patient input is essential at all points in care. #GreatChallenges
— AnneMarie Ciccarella (@chemobrainfog) January 10, 2013
“How can we do what we are doing better?” @margaretaindc “Bring end user to table to be part of it” #GreatChallenges — AnneMarie Ciccarella (@chemobrainfog) January 10, 2013
Will constant feedback via mobile app help us stick to health goals? #ABI suggests yes. Discussed now @tedmed #GreatChallenges — Andrea Schpok, MPH (@AndreaSchpok) January 10, 2013
“We are on the verge of a patient engagement explosion”Lisa Bielamowicz @tedmed It’s already exploded on twitter. #GreatChallenges
In the equivalent of asking if there was a startup in the house, Lisa Bielamowicz of the Advisory Board Company noted the rise of data from sheer volume of people using portable devices to monitor activity from exercise to diet. She appealed for a company to find a way to filter and package that data so providers could better serve their patients. “We are on verge of patient data explosion. How do we synthesize the information back to providers so it is in a usable, actionable format?”
— AnneMarie Ciccarella (@chemobrainfog) January 10, 2013
Need to optimize and integrate healthcare delivery to reduce costs and improve outcomes says @diegomiralles #greatchallenges #tedmed
— Meghan Marschall (@mmarscha) January 10, 2013
Lisa of @theadvisorybd: Some of most compelling innovations connect patient to provider to engage them in treatment @tedmed #greatchallenges
— FasterCures (@FasterCures) January 10, 2013
The issue of what drives innovation came up a lot. No other industry relies quite as much on academic institutions as healthcare, a couple of the panelists noted. But does innovation come from clinical need, clinical necessity or both?
#greatchallenges patient and clinician engagment improtant, need both to succeed too much innovation forgets the clinician — georgemargelis (@georgemargelis) January 10, 2013
In 2011, Siemens established over 1,000 new research partnerships with universities and research institutions. @tedmed #greatchallenges
— Siemens Healthcare (@SiemensHealth) January 10, 2013
Diego Miralles of Janssen touched on how the pressure the HIV/AIDS community exerted for the healthcare industry to develop a cure. That led to new drugs being developed. One panelist, pondering why the healthcare industry lacked that sense of forcefulness, concluded it’s not so much that the healthcare industry is resistant or lacks courage. Trying to be innovative in the narrow confines of a regulatory framework can have a frustrating. Still, with the frequently cited issue of adherence, there’s a lot of interest in solving that problem because there’s so much at stake if adherence rates were improved — pharmaceutical companies would make more revenue, payer costs would shrink and healthcare would be more efficient.
Breast cancer activists are next! MT @fastercures: @margaretaindc #HIV/AIDS activists successful b/c got smart on science #greatchallenges — AnneMarie Ciccarella (@chemobrainfog) January 10, 2013
How do we come together to establish a “uniform” plan to engage all players in all phases: innovation, research, cost, care #GreatChallenges
— AnneMarie Ciccarella (@chemobrainfog) January 10, 2013