Calling broadband connectivity the most significant foundation for disruption in healthcare, FCC Commissioner Mignon Clyburn shared a three-part prescription for building up the industry during a keynote at the Connected Health Conference this week.
Clyburn compared the expansion of broadband to the railroad and interstate highway systems, saying that building up infrastructure will accelerate innovation. Ubiquitous connections, she said, should be viewed as a means, not an end.
"Industries that ignore this risk becoming less relevant," Clyburn said.
Clyburn's three suggestions for improving the industry included:
- Think differently: "We must constantly push ourselves and our organizations to grow and innovate," she said. If emerging health innovations do not meet the needs of patients, they will go to where they believe they can find a solution, "even if those solutions are unsafe or unwise," Clyburn said.
- Don't envision the future within the constraints of the present: Developing tools based on what's "possible or reimbursable today" will lead to innovation being "shackled," according to Clyburn.
- Avoid complacency: "We must resist the temptation to accept and embrace the status quo," Clyburn said.
Additionally, she said that incrementalism isn't an acceptable strategy. "I know small improvements may be exactly what we achieve at times, but we must never, ever allow it to be what we aim to achieve," Clyburn said.
The FCC, Clyburn said, tries to embrace change and "play to where the puck will be" in its decisions. To that end, she said, enabling a certain level of intelligence to reside within devices that can interact with one another could be called the Holy Grail of connected health.
"It will allow both medical devices and everyday household objects, alike, to actually take on smart characteristics," Clyburn said. "That could cause technology to seemingly disappear, allowing it to be seamlessly woven into the fabric of everyday life."