Innovation in healthcare: How Houston Methodist focused disruption inward

Innovate or die. Or, as Charles Darwin said, ‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change’. Healthcare is changing. The triad of hospital, doctor and payer has been disrupted by telemedicine providers, concierge medicine companies, digital medicine providers, consumer product company turned providers and pharmacy company providers. The site of care and the means of providing care have changed from patient and provider in a physical office location to consumer with digital, telephonic or ondemand, in-person access to a provider. Healthcare has now joined many industries in the digital age of consumer-focused services. Consumers have switched loyalty: from the yellow cab to Uber, hotels to Airbnb, TV to Netflix. Healthcare organisations want patients to see them as being as customer-obsessed as Amazon and simple as Netflix. Healthcare must help consumers in the way they want to be helped: an easy format with institutional memory, preserving a patient’s history and empowering care providers with the information necessary to treat the patient. Innovative use of technology to meet the needs of a changing patient population and workforce will drive healthcare into the future. At Houston Methodist, a core team of Digital Innovation Obsessed People formed the Center for Innovation that drove new pilots and programmes, facilitating success across the healthcare spectrum.