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 Stop-Winlock’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.