The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care

5 Responses to “The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care”

1. Dr Cathy Goodwin says:

   May 2, 2010 at 3:45 am

   It’s rare to find a book that provides a new conceptual approach to anything, let alone health care, and then presents thoughts in a dynamic, appealing way. This book does both, combining a sophisticated understanding of business models with an appreciation of the way systems work in real life.

   Essentially, the authors say that medical providers play different roles, needing different types of institutions. A diagnostician needs different skills, tools and techniques than a surgeon or a name who’s managing a long-term condition. Their second point is that normally, the market replaces outmoded forms naturally, through capitalist innovation.

   For instance, Netflix offers competition to storefront video rental stores. In the medical world, the Netflix equivalent would not be available to patrons because all the players in the system can protect their turfs.

   There are only a few questions I would raise.

   First, end of life care is the most costly part of our health care system. Additional books – regularly by physicians – acknowledge that these costly measures tend to be invasive and really force people to suffer a painful, degrading experience just before they die. The authors barely acknkowledge this reality, noting only that end of life costs are related to chronic conditions such as diabetes or heart disease. Regardless, even after a healthy lifestyle, end of life costs can be overwhelming.

   Second, the authors praise HMOs, such as Kaiser or Group Health. These models do offer more well-organized health care manner of language, but participants pay a fee: impersonal treatment, limited choice of providers, and few opportunities to appeal decisions. Providers are rewarded for conserving resources. Usually it’s a win-win but sometimes patients suffer consequences.

   Third, I can’t help wondering if the growth in alternative treatments represents a consumer response to an innovation. The same people who complain about $25 copays regularly pay hundreds or thousands or dollars for vitamins, supplements and alternative therapies, yet feel satisfied. It’s worth exploring.

   Finally, the authors seem to assume employers will permanently be part of the health care system. This assumption has become increasingly treacherous as more people seek self-employment.

   Alas, prescriptions don’t work unless you fill them and take as directed. The authors point out the challenges of getting any change into the system. Knowledge and awareness may be first steps but it’s hard to imagine where they will take us.
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
2. R. Brush says:

   May 2, 2010 at 6:05 am

   The Innovator’s Prescription is an brilliant analysis of the systemic problems we see in health care in the United States. It makes a compelling case for managing health (versus managing illness), and applies Christensen’s “Disruptive Innovation” model to point us down a path to help solve this.

   As a lay person I didn’t realize how ignorant I was regarding broader health care issues until I read this book. Highly recommended for anyone looking to better know the problems and possible solutions.
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
3. J. Groen says:

   May 2, 2010 at 6:26 am

   Once again, Clayton has written, this time with the help of two MDs, a phenomenal book extending the theory of disruptive innovation into the health care industry.
   
   To me, this is his most vital book because it discusses how disruptive innovation will impact health care over the next years. It does this by category: hospital, doctors, pharmaceutical companies, medical contrivance companies, insurance companies, etc. And, it is accomplished in a very analytical and straightforward manner – just the facts please.
   
   And there are the examples – this book is chock full of real world examples of companies, e.g. hospitals, insurance companies, etc., who are already doing it.
   
   As I’m telling everyone in this meadow, if you are in the health care meadow, you need to read this book. And then, use it to analyze your own company’s situation.
   
   It appears to me that major disruption is just around the confront in the health care industry and this will help you to be proactive, prepare for it and be a winner in the realities of the future.
   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
4. Joseph H. Schneider says:

   May 2, 2010 at 8:27 am

   The Innovator’s Prescription: A Disruptive Solution for Health Care

   This book explores the problems with the US health “system” and offers some disruptive solutions. Brilliant

   Reader’s Rating: 5 / 5
5. Lance Manning says:

   May 2, 2010 at 8:33 am

   In Innovator’s Prescription, the authors spend less time reviewing the failures of the past, as was the case in Innovator’s Dilemma. Exhaustive examination of failed equipment business models is replaced by more of what the future of the health care industry will look like. Hospitals as we know them are not yet extinct. Also, the inefficiencies of care remain insulated from full market elasticity. But, this is changing with HSA-driven, consumer cost consciousness, and quality-inducing Medicare/Medicaid reimbursements.

   Unlike contemporary books on this topic, the authors are careful not to blind readers with best technologies yet to come. More importantly, topics such as medical education and fee-for-service manner of language models are deliberated with understandable eventuality amidst validated economic and market forces.

   The compelling vision that is the future of medical education deserves a book of its own. The diminishing role cited of today’s medical schools slaps a wake up call onto the face of this traditional cash cow. As the Toyota Production System impacts time, cost, and quality with a jump from series to parallel processes, it’s suggested that the same will take place for the medical school. Just how science learning and clerkship will merge together remains to be seen. Absent from this dialogue is the “speed to proficiency” movement gaining ground for medical simulation and certification.

   The unsustainability of medical education meeting the needs of the masses receives no better example than the following meadow and need disparity:
   
   -more are being trained and less are needed (specialists)
   
   -less are trained when more are needed (nurses)

   To resolve this issue, the current Administration seeks to adopt incentives (student loan reimbursement, etc.) to offset the imbalance. This trend, but, feeds the ongoing demand for specialty hospitals as maximized quality follows free market models versus mandated models.

   Innovator’s Prescription concludes that `fee for service’ and `direct to consumer’ health care will become more prevalent. The successful business models of the future in this market space reflect disaggregation of `hospital care as we know it’ services. Point-of-care diagnostics, outpatient surgery clinics, retail health clinics, are among the spectrum of simplifying innovations in health care standards of the future.
   
   Reader’s Rating: 4 / 5