Innovation in Healthcare

Introduction

The time for healthcare innovation is now. New engines and a paradigm shift in data have started to turn the pages of healthcare to a new chapter in innovation.

New engines of innovation:

1. Sources of funding
   For the past 30 years, clinical research has been mainly fueled by government-financed grants through the National Institutes of Health. As government funding has waned and regulatory demands from the FDA have increased [1], we’ve seen a significant shift in the placement of the traditional engines that fund innovation and research towards healthcare. Angel investor networks and engaged patient communities are fueling new solutions and business models with few strings attached. Unconstrained by the same regulations as government-financed grants, these new engines are intrinsically attracted by the opportunity cost of innovation.

2. New financial incentives for healthcare providers
   The bottleneck in healthcare innovation has traditionally fallen on the gatekeeper role that physicians play in flow of medical resources. However, recent grants have fueled the opening of these gates to more innovative approaches to healthcare. Grants from the CMS (Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services) have $1 billion innovation awards to sponsor experimental payment and service models that hope to deliver better care and lower costs [2]. These programs absorb the risk typically associated with innovative advances and allow new programs to push healthcare forwards.

3. Paradigm shift in data
   Patients are taking control of their own data
   Innovation in healthcare has long suffered from regulations of patient data. Protected health information stays within the institutional confines of hospitals without the tools to analyze them effectively. Important data and results from clinical research studies are considered propriety information. However, walls blocking innovation from the data of healthcare are starting to wear down from a slew of new companies who are empowering patients to take back their data. Companies like Counsyl and 23andme provide analytic tools for patients who provide these companies with their genomic data. Results from sharing data simultaneously strengthen analytical tools while empowering patients to take control of their data.

4. Sharing data and analytics
   As other industries like retail and advertisements have turned machine learning and data analytics into mainstream tools, the healthcare industry has opened up to new technologies in order to process all the data all around them. Companies like Flatiron Health have entered in partnerships with institutions to provide organization and analytical tools in return for anonymized data. Nuna health shares government data to restructure insurance information with the intention of standardizing processes and making inefficiencies more apparent. It’s partnerships like these that turn otherwise unused data into tools to enact actual change in healthcare.

Conclusion

Appropriately distanced from the “move fast and break things” culture of the Silicon Valley, healthcare has moved deliberately towards this tipping point. There hasn’t been a better time to innovate in healthcare than now and I only hope we can start playing a part in turning the pages.

1. “How open innovation could reinvigorate the pharmaceutical industry with fresh R&D opportunities” http://informahealthcare.com/doi/pdf/10.1586/ecp.09.43
2. “Healthcare Innovation Awards” http://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/Health-Care-Innovation-Awards/