To improve performances, healthcare providers must innovate the delivery process "on a massive scale," writes author and futurist Ian Morrison, Ph.D in an opinion piece in Hospitals & Health Networks.
As more baby boomers age into Medicare eligibility and healthcare premiums overwhelm more Americans, affordability solutions must go beyond cost-cutting or re-engineering, Morrison states. "We need to harness the innovation that entrepreneurial companies can bring and to encourage large-scale delivery systems to deploy them," he writes. "All this must be done in pursuit of the noble Triple Aim of better healthcare, better health and lower per capita costs. Searching and sorting these innovations--and evaluating, disseminating and connecting them to partners--is very important work."
In order to drive innovation, policymakers must establish an environment that fosters change and gives healthcare providers room to create new ideas, Morrison writes. For example, although he says that he supports the Affordable Care Act's creation of a Center for Innovation within the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services, government alone can't drive innovation. "No one is regulating Apple's app community developers, and they seem to be doing just fine," he writes.
Morrison made similar arguments at the National Healthcare Innovation Summit in May, telling participants that healthcare has "hit a wall," and to advance, the system must consider ideas like more Americans learning to live on Medicare, or employers stepping back from their role in healthcare purchasing, FierceHealthcare previously reported.
To learn more:
- read the opinion piece