The Creative Disruption of the Healthcare Business Model

Smart, connected consumer centric digital platforms offer the healthcare industry the opportunity to rethink strategic choices about value creation and realization.  For most of us, we have easily adapted to the disruption of the banking, airline, book, and music industries and have integrated smart, connected digital products into our daily lives.  Mitch Wasden, EdD, Chief Executive Officer of University of Missouri Health Care in a General Session of the Cerner Health Conference 2014 challenges healthcare to think differently about our use of technology.  Rather than “implementing” information technologies, he describes a technology enabled redesign of the healthcare business model.

In a recent interview with Maestro CEO Pam Arlotto, Mitch explained that he believes traditional healthcare performance improvement has been too incremental.  He said, “In healthcare, we take a process that requires 40 steps and improve it so it only takes 37 steps.”  According to Mitch, “We need more creative disruption.  While technology can impact innovation, we can’t just layer it in – that only adds complexity.  We need a more systemic approach to change – to conceive of more elegant ways to deliver value and then destroy our current system.  Transformation occurs through simplification, engaging patients and clinicians in new and different ways, getting down to the essence of the value.”  

Watch Mitch describe how his organization is working to create a culture of innovation and transformation:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MttasLlDTWI.