Healthcare Innovations

Innovation Starts at Home

One of the best ways to make innovation happen is to just start experimenting and trying out ideas. Nice to see it happening with Allina.

Allina Hospitals & Clinics establishes new Center for Healthcare Innovation. 2008-Jun-11 (press release)

Allina Hospitals & Clinics today announced it is creating a new, $100 million Center for Healthcare Innovation to support innovations in both clinical and population health research that can be translated to improved health for patients and the wider community.

The Allina Board of Directors has authorized a $50 million investment over the next five years, with $10 million to be invested annually. The organization intends to raise an additional $50 million over five years in partnership with private corporations, foundations and through sponsored research and grant-making organizations.

The Center will launch with three inaugural projects:

• The Heart of New Ulm is an innovative and visionary effort to eliminate heart attacks in the community of New Ulm, Minn. Today, nearly 90 percent of New Ulm residents are New Ulm Medical Center patients and therefore have a record in Allina's electronic medical record system. This level of participation by one community in the electronic record system provides an unparalleled and robust database for understanding population health and gives Allina the ability to identify patients at risk for cardiovascular disease, ensure they receive early and appropriate interventions, and track their care over time. Combined with public education and awareness, this project promises to go beyond identifying the causes of heart disease to focusing on early intervention and prevention. The
  
• The Backyard Project  Allina will extend its historic and long-time commitment to the Phillips and Powderhorn neighborhoods of Minneapolis to improve population health. Allina's system office, largest hospital, Abbott Northwestern, and only specialty eye hospital, Phillips Eye Institute, are all located in this diverse, but health-challenged neighborhood. Bringing together residents, researchers, policy makers, community leaders and others, Allina will forge new models for improving residents' health status and understanding how medical, social, educational and economic factors are interdependent and impact health in its own "backyard" neighborhoods.
  
  
• The Allina Center for Patient Safety Allina will create the "next level" of patient safety efforts by a health system, improving the quality of care and reducing the cost of error. The Center for Patient Safety will be a source of knowledge and information to strengthen cultures of safety across Allina. Through the Center, Allina will develop the leadership skills that build a stronger focus on quality and safety.

Innovation Floods out of the Cleveland Clinic

Time magazine did a big article about how much the Cleveland Clinic is doing to push medicine into an new level of effectiveness.

TIME: Medical Mouse Practice, 2008-Jun-5, by Kathleen Kingsbury

Placing exam-room computers on moving carts was an important early step, so that physicians didn't have to turn away from the patient to enter data into the terminal. This helped resolve a common patient complaint, that electronic records seem impersonal. Harris, a practicing general internist and a Wharton M.B.A., has used his clinical experience to foster innovation that directly benefits patients. The hospital's 3 million--plus patients can schedule appointments online, for example, and fill out paperwork on the Web before they get to the waiting room. Cleveland Clinic's specialists supply second opinions to patients worldwide who enter symptoms into an Internet form and then send test results to doctors via FedEx. Cardiologists silently, invisibly monitor patients' pacemakers and other implanted devices remotely to make sure they're functioning correctly.

Businessweek's Picks

BusinessWeek recently conferred with Larry Keeley, co-founder of innovation consulting firm Doblin, to figure out the most promising areas for innovation in healthcare:

• digital health records
• medical tourism
• concierge medicine
• predictive care
• genomics
• technology used to limit contagion
• culturally adapted treatments
• intervention to reduce unhealthy behaviors.

These are certainly areas which are receiving a lot of pressure to revolutionize healthcare. I suspect that some of them will turn out to be dead ends.

Fresh Eyes

At first, it sounds like a bad thing, get a temporary doctor as opposed to someone who knows you, but it many situations the doctor knows your chart more than he or her knows you anyway. I'm a big believer in bringing in "fresh eyes" to many jobs, and a temp may observe something that developed slowly and unnoticed.

Chicago Tribune: Rising number of temporary doctors. 2008-Jun-3, by Sarah Morgan (via HealthLeaders)

For doctors, working as a temp can be a way to escape some of the more tedious aspects of medical practice. A doctor can simply tell the agency in what state or what type of practice he or she wants to work, and the agency takes care of the rest: finding a placement; making sure the doctor is properly licensed in that state; arranging and paying for travel; finding accommodations in a hotel, apartment or house; and orienting the doctor to the hospital or medical group where they'll be practicing. The agency also covers the doctor's malpractice insurance. A placement can be anywhere from a few days to a few months.

"It sort of gets you off the treadmill of medical practice," said Phil Miller, spokesman for Staff Care. "You're basically focusing on the patients."