Healthcare Innovation Is More Than Tech—It’s People and Process Too

We know that demand for healthcare services is growing fast and that many healthcare systems are struggling to keep pace with demand, especially in emerging markets. We know too that innovation can help bridge the supply/demand gap and that it cannot be business-as-usual if we want to make progress in implementing universal healthcare goals.

In my field, ‘innovation’ is a term often interpreted a bit too narrowly for my liking to mean technology—the gadgets, robotics, artificial intelligence etc. Yes, that’s innovation and that is very exciting. But innovation is so much more. Innovation is about the processes used to treat patients, to deliver care to them. How do we pull all these ingredients together to drive up efficiency and improve value for money? That is the key question we will get to grips with in our opening keynote at our upcoming healthcare conference in Miami.

We will seek to answer these questions:

• What tangible benefits does innovation provide patients?
• What contribution should innovative technologies make in healthcare markets?
• How do we get buy-in from healthcare providers to innovation-driven change?
• Beyond tech innovation, how do we innovate with business models and processes?
• Is regulation holding innovation back?
• What are the potential pitfalls of embracing technology? For example, can it lead to silos, especially if it is not driven by the care providers?
• How will technological innovation transform the market in 10 and 20 years?

We are fortunate to have as our keynote speaker Daniel Kraft, a physician-scientist, inventor, entrepreneur, and innovator with affiliations to Stanford and Harvard. You can see Daniel in action here at one of his recent TED Talks. Daniel’s opening keynote will frame the conversations we will have over two days. We will review which innovations have worked and which ones have not. Such events can be heavy on sales pitches and light on retrospective reviews. Miami will be different.

Part 3 of 8 Part Primer on 8th IFC Global Private Healthcare Conference in Miami Beach, Florida on March 27–28. IFC will convene 500 healthcare entrepreneurs, investors, ministers, and thought leaders for two days of great discussions and facilitated networking. This is the only such conference focused on private healthcare in emerging markets. Register today!

Keep up with the latest on private healthcare in emerging markets by following the IFC Health LinkedIn showcase page.