Advancing Healthcare Through Innovation

“Innovation is risky—but so is not innovating.” Best-selling author and renowned ‘godmother’ of consumer-driven healthcare, Regina Herzlinger, Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, shares her insights on how to innovate in healthcare with IFC’s Charles Dalton, in this the final webisode of this season’s IFC Health Services Series. According to Professor Herzlinger:

• Second movers often succeed better than first movers by correcting first movers’ mistakes.
  
• Beware of asset-heavy investments—your local pharmacy can do more than you may think.
• Measure, measure, measure…patient outcomes: “I don’t want to see a cookbook of medicine; I want to taste the end result.”

Herzlinger highlights real-world examples of valuable innovations:

• A health insurer in the United States who pays for home inspections that detect allergens and infestations that cause respiratory illnesses.
  
• A hospital in Brazil that built a hotel where it throws parties for elderly after it saw many old people coming into their emergency room suffering from loneliness.
• A soft mat that detects early onset ulcers in diabetics by measuring their foot temperature, which may avoid the need for limb amputations later.