The Future Of…Healthcare Innovation

This post is part of the #HIMSS15 Blog Carnival which explores “The Future of…” across 5 different healthcare IT topics.

Innovation is a fascinating concept. Historians and philosophers have been thinking and investigating the key to innovation forever. I’m not sure anyone has ever found the true secret sauce to innovation. Every innovation I’ve ever seen has been a mix of timing, luck, and hard work.

Some times the timing is not right for a product and therefore it fails. The product might have been great, but the timing wasn’t right for it to be rolled out. Innovation always requires a little luck. Maybe it was the chance meeting with an investor that helps take and idea to the next level. Maybe it’s the luck of getting the right exposure that catapults your idea into a business. Maybe it’s the luck of the right initial end users which shape the direction of the product. Every innovation has also required hard work. In fact, the key to ensuring you’re ready for luck to be heaped upon you or to test if your timing is right is to put in the work.

The great thing is that it’s a brilliant time to be working on innovations in healthcare. We’re currently at the beginning of a confluence of healthcare innovations. Each one on its own might seem like a rather small innovation, but taken together they’re going to provide amazing healthcare innovations that shape the future of healthcare as we know it.

Let me give a few examples of the wave of innovations that are happening. Health sensors are exploding. Are ability to know in real time how well our body is performing is off the charts. There are sensors out there for just about every measurable aspect of the human body. The next innovation will be to take all this sensor data and collapse it down into appropriate communication and actions.

Another example, is the innovations in genomic medicine. The cost and speed required to map your genome is collapsing faster than Moore’s law. All of that genomic data is going to be available to innovators who want to build something on top of it.

3D printing is progressing at light speed. Don’t think this applies to healthcare? Check out this 3D printed prosthetic hand or this 3D printed heart. If you really want your mind blown, check out people’s work to provide blood to 3D printed organs.

If you think we’ve gotten value out of healthcare data, you’re kidding yourself. There are so many innovations in healthcare data that are sitting there waiting in healthcare data hoards. We just need to tap into that data and start sharing those findings with a connected healthcare system.

The mobile device is an incredible innovation just waiting for healthcare. We are all essentially walking around with a computer in our pocket now. We’ve already started to see the innovations this will provide healthcare, but it’s only just the beginning. This computer in our pocket will become the brain and communication hub for our healthcare needs.

I’m sure you can think of other innovations that I haven’t mentioned including robotics, health literacy, healthcare gaming, etc. What’s most exciting to me about the future of healthcare innovation is that each of these innovations will combine into a unforeseen innovation. The most powerful innovations in healthcare will not be a single innovative idea. Instead, it will come from someone who combines multiple innovations into one beautiful package.

The most exciting part of innovation is that it’s usually unexpected and surprising. I love surprises. What do you see as the future building blocks of innovation in healthcare?

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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