Moving beyond the healthcare debate : How we’ll really transform the system!

It’s an interesting time in the US. The healthcare reform debate continues; the future is uncertain. Health care groups everywhere and those impacted by the bill are spending a huge amount of time thinking about the implications of the bill, and the role of innovation.

In my own case, I’ve been doing and am scheduled to do quite a few keynotes for health care or related institutions (insurance, tax, financial, pharmaceutical, and others..) that focus on future trends in health care. And I’m finding that people are bringing me in as the ‘thought leader’ to really open the minds of people beyond the policy and political discussions which are underway in these leadership meetings.

For example, for an upcoming conference in Arizona, there will be two days looking at health reform issues. There will be:

• a policy wonk, looking at the politics of health care in Washington
• an economist, who will take a look at the global and US economies, and the impact on health care dollars
• a health system specialist, who will talk about how to implement the requirements of the health care bill
• and me — the future — to provide a closing keynote on the REAL trends that will impact healthcare into the future!

There are a lot of policy and political issues on the table today, and organizations need to address them. But I’m also finding that quite a few CEO’s and senior executives are working hard to move their team beyond just those issues, and are looking for the real opportunities for innovation within the system. That’s where I come in!

As I note in my healthcare keynote description:

“When Jim Carroll began a recent keynote talk for the Minnesota Hospital Association CEO Summit, he announced that he wouldn’t even mention health care reform — and the audience of 300 senior executives cheered! Instead, he told the audience that he would take them on a voyage to the world of healthcare in the year of 2020, and provide them the insight they really need to deal with the challenges and opportunity of the future.”

What are some of these trends, that go well beyond reform? I cover them in my talk:

“Where will we by the year 2020? We will have successfully transitioned the system from one which “fixes people after they’re sick” to one of preventative, diagnostic genomic-based medicine. Treating patients for the conditions we know they are likely to develop, and re-architechting the system around that reality. A system which will provide for virtual care through bio-connectivity, and extension of the hospital into a community-care oriented structure. A consumer driven, retail oriented health care environment for non-critical care treatment that provides significant opportunities for cost reduction. Real time analytics and location-intelligence capabilities which provide for community-wide monitoring of emerging health care challenges. “Just-in-time” knowledge concepts which will help to deal with a profession in which the volume of knowledge doubles every six years. That and much, much more.”

Health care reform is a big issue, and likely one of the biggest in the US economy today. But you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you think that innovation in the health care sector is limited to the impact of the bill. There are so many trends providing so much opportunity for innovation, you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t understand them.

Think BIGGER – read my “It’s January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade” document!