Podcast: Is Anyone Obligated to Incite Healthcare Innovation?

Key opinion leaders often debate who could or should be inciting healthcare innovation. Are we better off if clinicians or software developers take the reins of the digital transformation? And what role should healthcare executives and patients play? These are valuable questions, and each stakeholder brings their own value to healthcare’s growth.

But perhaps we’re missing an equally important question: Who should be responsible — as in, obligated, required — for prompting healthcare innovation? Right now, there’s no clear answer, and that has arguably resulted in an innovation void in many organizations and some corners of healthcare.

>> WATCH: Who Is Responsible for Driving Healthcare Innovation?

So, today on Data Book, we examine this very issue: who gets to innovate and who must innovate.

To kick off the episode, we take you to Salt Lake City, Utah, in December 1982. A snowstorm is raging, and reporters from across the country have descended upon the University of Utah. They’re here because the world seems to be on the cusp of a major change.

Robert Jarvik, M.D., had shown not long ago that his artificial heart could consistently beat 100,000 times per day. He and his colleagues secured regulatory approval to test the device in a human. Today is the day that surgeons plan to implant the what could be the world’s first permanent artificial heart. But will it work?

Before we answer that question, we look at Jarvik the person — his interests, family ties and career path — to better analyze our overarching question. Was he destined to become a medical device pioneer? Must all healthcare innovators and inventors be cut from a similar mold?

To dive deeper, Data Book then pivots to an all-star panel of health-tech leaders. They visited our studio in Cranbury, New Jersey not long ago to tackle the question of responsibility and healthcare question, and they came up with some interesting answers.

So, join Kevin Campbell, M.D., Geeta Nayyar, M.D., John Nosta, Jane Sarasohn-Kahn and Colin Hung for a meaningful discussion that could help guide how your healthcare organization carries out its plans for the digital transformation. You might even realize that you are responsible for healthcare innovation.

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