Why Is Health Innovation Talk  Suddenly So Hot?

Control your destiny or someone else will.

Jack Welch,  former CEO of GE,  available as book and as audio CD

It’s never too late to innovate.

R Reece,  Innovation-Driven Health Care (Jones and Bartlett, 2007)

Maybe it’s what I want to believe,  but  suddenly  talk of health care innovation is hot.  Maybe it’s because my number of Medinnovation  “hits,” i.e. page views,  has doubled in the last three days since I  announced a proposal to conduct and to print personal interviews on my blog with health leaders who want  to share their views on innovatin with a wider audience.

Why so sudden?  

Here's how I explain it.

·          With the sequester kicking-in,  people are suddenly  beginning to realize government overspending isn’t  producing results – lower costs, greater access, more convenient care.  Obamacare  is expected to spend  $1 trillion in next 10 years.  The really big spending starts in 2013 and 2014.  So far,  overwhelmingly  few Americans, probably less than 10 million out of a population of  315 million,  have received any tangible benefits.  Instead the health law   has raised health premiums for insured  Americans by 20% to 30%, even doubled premiums in individual markets.    And the health law  has created tremendous angst and uncertainty  among business owners,  state governments, and patients as to what this thing called Obamacare is really going to cost.

·         It has suddenly dawned on health care professionals that Obamacare funds itself by taking $716 billion out of the pockets of Medicare,  hospitals, physicians,  businesses,   and raising $400 billion in taxes from the public at large.

·         Enter the concepts of innovation,  entrepreneurship, independence , self-sufficiency and self-reliance.   These are basic American values.  It is not what others do for you.  It is what you do for yourself, your fellow Americans, and your fellow health care bedmates.

·         Enter the concept of the Groundswell, people are suddenly using digitized  technologies to link up with another in various ways  to win in a transformed world.   Health leaders are using social technology  networks  to hook up with another, to learn from one another, and to get things done and to get done what they need from each other rather than from traditional institutions like government.   

·         Add to these new realities the truth that Innovation is a positive concept.  Government dependency is a negative concept in that you depend on others.   Innovation is something you dream up  yourself,  do for  yourself,  build for yourself and your company.     

But to make innovation work for society at large,  you need sot spread the word of your hot ideas and innovation and how they have worked in your corner of the health care world.  To spread your word, consider a personal view with me on the Medinnovation  blog so you can reach and teach others about innovation.

Tweet:  With sequester now history and with Obamacare developments, health care innovation has moved front and center on the health reform stage.

Source:  Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies , Harvard Business Press, 2008