Health-Care Industry Benefits from Innovation
The U.S. health-care industry isn’t immune to the forces of disruptive innovation that already have transformed other businesses, from computer manufacturing to retailing, HBS professor Clayton M. Christensen told 250 participants at the fifth annual Alumni Healthcare Conference in November at HBS.
As the opening presenter at the two-day conference, sponsored by the HBS Health Industry Alumni Association, Christensen made the case for how disruptive innovation could give consumers access to simpler, less expensive, quality care. “Disruption has been one of the fundamental causal mechanisms through which our lives have improved,” said Christensen, the author or coauthor of several books on innovation, including the most recent, Seeing What’s Next: Using the Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change.
Disruptive innovation already is at work in the health-care arena, he noted. A company called MinuteClinic, with locations in Minneapolis/St. Paul and Baltimore, operates a number of facilities where a nurse-practitioner or physician’s assistant provides an array of basic medical services, from diagnosing and treating earaches to providing screening tests. No appointments are necessary, most patients are in and out in fifteen minutes, and services are covered by most health insurance plans.
The clinics are what Christensen calls a “disruptive delivery mechanism.” Medical technology now makes it possible for nurse-practitioners to deliver services that once required a doctor’s attention, he explained. Innovations like MinuteClinic that reach previously underserved consumers or provide benefits to those overserved by doctor-based care have the potential to reshape the health-care industry, he added.
The development of new treatments for heart disease offers another good example of disruptive innovation, Christensen noted. Before the development of balloon angioplasty, patients with coronary artery disease had to be seriously ill before getting open-heart bypass surgery, an expensive procedure performed by cardiac surgeons.
With the introduction of balloon angioplasty, patients had a simpler, cheaper option that did not require open-heart surgery. As with all disruptions, more people are better off as a result, said Christensen.
Also on the opening day, Bunny Ellerin (MBA '95), founder and president of the HBS Health Industry Alumni Association, announced that she was relinquishing her position after five years but would remain on the board as chairperson. Under her leadership the association has grown to over 650 members. Robert DeNoble (MBA '72), president of RDA Healthcare Consulting, became the association’s new president.
To read more highlights of the conference, visit www.workingknowledge.hbs.edu and click on HBS Conference Coverage.
