Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Michael Porter on Redefining Health Care

The first speaker at World Innovation Forum was Harvard professor and author Michael Porter. He spoke about health care (he wrote a book - Redefining Health Care).

"The fundamental key in healthcare is to improve the value". Incremental improvements will not get us there. "The structure of the healthcare system does not deliver value to the customer". "Health care reform bills are all about process and not about transforming delivery". "We need to change the nature of competition in healthcare". "Much of the struggle has been over price - not value. Insurers push health care providers and vice versa." "Restricting services is not the solution". "Improving outcomes reduces the cost. Good health is less expensive than bad health - use the power of quality to control costs" (This reminds me of a great book - Younger Next Year that had the thesis that vibrant health does not cause immortality but it allows people to age "well" - live without sickness, move well etc and rather than going slowly down a hill of poorer and poorer health, you can live well before dropping off a cliff.)

"Most fundamental change needs to be to organize delivery around the patient - not around specialties. Measure outcomes (where did the patient start and where did they end up)." "Move healthcare to the lowest cost location (says to me that homecare should be a growth field) "IT system siloing also adds to the problem"

Despite the general gloom around healthcare, he did speak of hope. And the hope lies in innovation.

It is appropriate to have a speaker talk about healthcare at an innovation conference - especially Michael Porter who advocates innovation to "save the healthcare system".

My perspective on health care differs radically than most Americans since I only moved to the US from Canada recently.

I do not yet trust the US health care system to have my best interests in mind. My solution is to try to be healthy. There is always a comfort in familiarity and I am familiar with the Canadian system.


3 Comments:

At 2:34 PM, Anonymous davidburkus said...

Great thoughts by Porter. I wish I heard more of this from the debate inside the beltway.

 
At 1:14 AM, Blogger farnandas said...

Move healthcare to the lowest cost location (says to Online Pharmacy me that homecare should be a growth field) "IT system siloing also adds to the problem.

 
At 1:22 AM, Blogger Unknown said...

it allows people to age "well" - live without sickness, move well etc and rather than see their reviews
going slowly down a hill of poorer and poorer health, you can live well before dropping off a cliff.)

 

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