Medical Innovation & Healthcare IT Challenges: A Trip Report (Over 200 Viewers of Cybersecurity Hub Periscope!)

[I wrote this trip report while thinking about today’s #HITsm tweetchat, Top 10 Challenges for Healthcare Executives. In my opinion, the top challenge for healthcare executives is managing innovation. In fact, all five #HITsm topics easily pivot to innovation in healthcare. At the end of this post I’ve (only slightly) rewritten them to emphasize the importance of innovation.]

Imagine combining the 40 best annual HIMSS conference presentations and the 2000 most interesting attendees and speakers. Mix in lots of cool science and conversation about innovation. Then add same night opening games for 2016 NBA Champion Cavaliers (before which they received championship rings) and baseball’s World Series (Indians versus Cubs). Then add robust social media (#MIS2016 on Twitter, over 73 million impressions). You might, might begin to approach the vibe at last week’s 2016 Medical Innovation Summit in Cleveland.

When I was CMIO for an EHR vendor, every time I came back from a conference I’d email around a detailed “trip report”: with whom I spoke, industry trends, specific market intelligent, impressions of demos of competing products, that sort of thing. This trip report is more about local color and vibe. First are ten tweeted photos and a bit of commentary. But there are some “deep thoughts,” to which you are welcome to skip! (Compromise? Slowly scroll though the photos and videos while admiring them?)

In no particular order, here are my top ten highlights.

1. Touring the HIMSS Cybersecurity Hub with question-answering viewers on Periscope.

180+ viewers! (and still rising)

2. “Chuck, I hope this book inspires your love of workflow!” Martin Harris, MD, CIO, Cleveland, Clinic, author, IT’s About Patient Care, McGraw-Hill, 2017.

3. #GoTribe!

4. More than 73 million Twitter impressions on the conference hashtag #MIS2016

5. My annual selfie with John Sharpe

6. Facing fear using virtual reality in the operating room

(I wasn’t even wearing the VR googles and my forehead began sweating during VR simulation of a cardiac arrest!)

7. Experiencing at first hand the raw force of Jonathan Bush…

8. Meeting my hero, nurse maker (maker nurse?) Anna K Young. Here is a link to her TedMed video and Wired article.

9. “Innovation of systems & processes are as important as innovations in pure tech” Cleveland Clinic, Chief Clinical Transformation Officer, Dr Michael Modic

This was a common refrain, as in innovating workflow around medical devices is as important as medical device innovation.

10. Beautiful fall colors on the way to the Medical Innovation Summit from my home in Columbus, Ohio.

Courtesy of Google Glass (which, by the way, will be back, better than ever, however an NDA prevents me from divulging more…)

OK, a series of tweeted images hardly constitute systematic and incisive analysis of the 2016 Medical Innovation Summit. So I will close with these thoughts.

As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, in the old days my trip reports were detailed and blow-by-blow. Truth-be-told, I not sure how many of my colleagues actually read my entire lengthy emails. So I’ll close with more of rumination on innovation in medical technology and health IT.

The name of the conference was Medical Innovation Summit. A synonym of “innovative” is “creative”. I studied computational models of creativity during my graduate degree in artificial intelligence. Every student of creative starts with Wallas’s four stages of creative thought:

  1. preparation,
  2. incubation,
  3. illumination, and
  4. verification.

The Wallas model has been endlessly elaborated, into five, six and more stages. But I like original model the most. During preparation we immerse ourselves in a topic. We learn everything we can. We turn over every rock, figuratively. Eventually, we run out of rocks to turn over, and then we enter a frustrating phase during which we think nothing is happening. Every creative artist, novelist, and scientist has experienced this funk. However, incubation cannot be rushed. Under the surface, subconsciously connections are being made. Finally, often suddenly, a lightbulb goes on over our head. What actually turns it on can seem like a random environmental cue. This is illumination. But having a bright idea is insufficient. It has be vetted and turned into something useful and sustainable. An actual piece of art or fiction. A successful experiment and then, perhaps, eventually, a disruptive industry technology.

I thought of the Wallas model of creativity during the MIS2016 session, The State of Healthcare Innovation. Someone, perhaps from the audience via the MIS2016 mobile app, asked “Why can we get money out of ATM globally but not share med info?”

Panelists went down the line, addressing this question. Then Carla Smith (EVP, HIMSS) pointed out that the first ATM was installed at the beginning of the seventies. And that it has taken almost a half a century to get to the network of ATMs we take for granted today.

Let’s apply the Wallas model of creativity to an entire industry, AKA innovation in health IT.

I think some current frustration with the state of health IT (you know, with interoperability, usability, safety, patient engagement, and so on) is because we are collectively in the important but frustrating preparation/incubation phase. While progress may seem slow, under the surface, under our collective radar, so to speak, important connections and synapses are forming. At venues such as the Medical Innovation Summit and the HIMSS annual conference, and in between, in startups and hubs and pilots, we see illumination. Bright ideas click “ON” (like those figurative cartoon lightbulbs over our heads), but then must be vetted and designed and deployed.

Umm, I think that’s about as far as I will drive that particular analogy, between a four-stage model of human creativity and health IT innovation… But I would like to point the widely displayed logo slash symbol at the Medical Innovation Summit: a lightbulb!

See you today’s #HITsm tweetchat! (every Friday, noon, EST)

HITsm Topics (emphasizing innovation)

Topic 1: What do you think are the main issues and concerns facing healthcare organizations? #HITsm

#1 Innovation

Topic 2: What are some ways to identify and prioritize challenges and issues specific to (innovation in) your healthcare organization? #HITsm

Topic 3: How can you establish an environment that communicates the importance of change innovation and welcomes opinions and new ideas? #HITsm

Topic 4: What are some ways to inform & engage others – in your firm & broadly across industry – in large transformational (AKA innovative) initiatives? #HITsm

Topic 5: Why do you think healthcare innovation lags that of other industries? And what can be done to ameliorate that? #HITsm (this topic didn’t even need to be rewritten!)


On Periscope!

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