Take Healthcare Out of the Hospital States Internist From Non Profit Exploring Disruptive Innovations

He makes some very good points on some disruptive technologies that have entered healthcare, like Minute Clinics and about how the venue of job descriptions is changing, duties shifting to other areas such as physician’s assistants performing tasks provided by doctors. He speaks about devices and yes we are accustomed to using present day devices, but most are not any where near ready to move to the next level whereby data is being reported from the devices which requires additional interaction and participation in one’s healthcare. Shoot there are doctors who don’t even know what those are as well. Also important is the muddy waters out there with devices as well, where’s your data going? Ask questions and be disruptive here yourself.

The next level of disruptive technology is going to need one heck of a training effort, otherwise it will be just that – a disruption that nobody understands or wants to deal with, folks will give up if overwhelmed. In following along with the title of this article, taking healthcare out of the hospital, we are talking a lot of devices and data reporting, so again not to be overlooked and considered.

One other item not mentioned is insurance carriers and they disrupt everybody every day with new business models, new plans, new scoring procedures for claims, and not to mention new algorithms that will affect somebody and the care they receive. So again all of this is fine and dandy with a little push, but we don’t want to over look the entire picture and need balance from all areas and not just decide to be disruptive because we can. (grin). BD

Jason Hwang, an internist and director of healthcare for the Innosight Institute, told attendees at the 2009 Connected Health Symposium in Boston that the best way to reform healthcare is to let disruptive, "bottom-up" technologies de-centralize the system.

Jason Hwang's prescription for healthcare reform can be boiled down to a simple axiom: Take healthcare out of the hospital.

The internist and executive director of healthcare at the Innosight Institute told attendees at the 2009 Connected Health Symposium that healthcare is too expensive and inaccessible for too many people, because the system's hospital-centric business model isn't sustainable.

Instead, Hwang called for a new model that recognizes the increasing role technology plays in our society.

"The story we often tell is about diabetics being empowered by technology to do more and more care for themselves. Obviously, outcomes tend to be better when [diabetics] are more engaged with their health," Hwang told MassDevice after his speech. "So we've armed them with glucose meters, insulin dosages that they're allowed to adjust on their own and an easy ability to get syringes in pharmacies. All of that goes to de-centralizing care.

"As you change the care-giving venue, you also usually change the profession of the person providing the care," Hwang observed. "Specialists have become generalists and more care is being given on an outpatient basis. Duties once performed by physicians are now the domain of physicians-assistants and nurses."