Unlock Opportunities and Drive Growth and Innovation in Health Care

Business and science leaders must operate at the complex intersection of trends that are disrupting legacy business models and possess a comprehensive understanding of the health care ecosystem. This is critical for their innovations to succeed and to fulfill important previously unmet needs of patients, providers, or payers.

• Experiences of patients and caregivers, and how patient experiences reveal unmet clinical needs and inspire avenues for research discovery
• How doctors think: The culture of medicine and patient-doctor interaction
• Changing makeup of care teams and care coordination
• Perspectives from health care in different contexts, from academic medical centers and community to underserved populations
• Pain points and threats to traditional care delivery models
• Population health management to maximize value
• Genetics and precision medicine in clinical practice

Case studies of health care innovation reveal how the broader health care ecosystem plays a critical role in the sustainable adoption of innovations. Whether one works in care delivery, biotech, pharma, medical devices, or health care IT, innovators need to account for the needs and perspectives of patients, care teams, enterprise purchasers, and payers to make new products successful.

• A framework for systematic innovation, from ideation to implementation
• Understanding stakeholder perspectives across the health care ecosystem to optimize your chances of success
• How to maintain a focus on patient-centricity that is integral to strategy and innovation
• How to understand and leverage behavioral economics to effect change
• How hospital and system leaders set priorities, navigate industry transformation, and support innovation

Digital transformation lags in health care compared to other industries such as consumer retail, travel, and banking. Nevertheless, digital tools hold great potential for health care, as AI and other technologies are applied to patient experience, disease diagnosis and management, care delivery, and the development of new therapeutics. HMS researchers and clinicians are at the forefront of applying these technologies and understanding both where opportunity lies and where the hardest problems remain.

• A framework for digital transformation – why some transformations succeed while others fail, and how leadership contributes to successful transformation
• Digital apps, wearables, and telehealth: use cases for how digital tools can improve patient access, provide algorithmic disease management, improve adherence, and facilitate smooth transitions of care
• Case vignettes from different countries on digital health initiatives and lessons learned

As health care costs strain budgets, new approaches to pricing and reimbursement for care delivery and therapies have profound implications. Health care delivery is also struggling with longstanding issues like unequal access, administrative burden, and workforce burnout.

• A framework to understand similarities and differences across health systems in different countries
• The current and future state of reimbursement: implications for patients, providers, and payers
• New approaches to developing a value argument for health care innovations, and navigating access and reimbursement
• Outcome and treatment disparities: challenges in caring for diverse patient populations

Innovation is increasingly becoming a multidisciplinary enterprise, whether in transnational companies or local start-ups, and across the many sectors of the health care ecosystem. Leaders must navigate the complexities presented by competing priorities and internal cultures in pursuit of excellence in innovation.

• Leading change management initiatives
• Understanding different modes of leadership that balance organizational learning, exploration, and execution
• Attracting, retaining, and empowering talent
• Managing multi-disciplinary teams across functional silos