If ever an industry has misunderstood and misused the word “innovative,” it is the hospital and health system industry. That’s not a knock on the underlying need, or the aspiration, but the definition that many hospital leaders have been using—for their meaning of “innovative” is closer to merely “new” than it is to innovative’s true meaning of “new methods; advanced and original.”
So, why do hospitals seem to settle for “new”? Because “new” is splashy and happy, where true innovation is painful. Anything worth changing in healthcare population health will in some way dismantle an existing process, and behind every process is someone’s job, or an entrenched technology.
One panel at the annual HealthLeaders Population Health Exchange explored some barriers that seem to block hospital and health system teams from truly tackling innovation in population health. This report identifies several of these common pitfalls.