Colorado Medical Society

http://dev.cms.org/articles/the-final-word-we-can-reimagine-health-care-together/

The Final Word: We can reimagine health care together

Tuesday, January 24, 2017 01:41 PM

We’ve discovered something in the health care industry. There won’t be an Uber of health care. There won’t be a Netflix or an Airbnb, either. Unfortunately, the complexities of the U.S. health care system, and the multitude of regulations that crisscross it, have made the rapid, large-scale transformations that we’ve seen in transportation, entertainment and hospitality very hard to emulate in our industry.

For a long time, health care executives believed this high barrier to entry would significantly delay the widespread disruption that was occurring elsewhere. Some even thought it might entirely prevent the digitization of the health care system.

But those executives underestimated the ingenuity, determination and endurance of a growing number of clinicians, entrepreneurs, technologists, executives, administrators, patients, policymakers, academics and investors who are dedicated to transforming our industry. And what the members of this global innovation movement have learned is that we can reimagine health care together.

In Colorado, more than 135 health-tech startups have been collaborating and competing within our innovation ecosystem for several years now to accelerate the digitization of the health care industry. Innovation-focused organizations like the Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, Colorado Emerging Medical Devices and Prime Health have been regularly convening the members of these startups at monthly gatherings – effectively turning our ecosystem into a community of innovators who are committed to working side by side to transform health care.

From Boomtown and TechStars, to Innosphere and Innovation Pavilion, the accelerators and incubators within Colorado’s thriving innovation economy have been developing support programs tailored to meet the needs of these startups. Major academic institutions like the University of Denver and CU Anschutz have also started participating in our regional ecosystem, launching initiatives to enable their students to play a role in reimagining how care is delivered.

All of this activity has occurred because the movement to transform health care through innovation cannot be stopped. The obstacles standing between innovators and the health care system have only galvanized our community, making us more and more willing to work together to overcome them. And that willingness to collaborate has led to the creation of an entirely new feature of the innovation economy.

For the past two years, my team and I have been developing Catalyst HTI, a first-of-its-kind, 180,000-square-foot industry integrator in Denver, Colo. By housing cutting-edge startups like Telespine, BurstIQ and Corvectra alongside established health care organizations like Kaiser Permanente, the American Diabetes Association and Medical Group Management Association, Catalyst HTI will encourage its members to work together to reimagine our industry – effectively integrating the health care system at the point of innovation.

It’s the next step for our ecosystem. Yet while it’s been a source of great excitement for Colorado’s health innovators, Catalyst HTI is part of a broader project of industry integration, one in which regional innovation ecosystems are consolidated within industry integrators across the country – essentially turning these regional ecosystems into enduring sites of transformation for our industry.

Take a moment to imagine what will be possible. Consider how quickly health care will change with a network of industry integrators spread across the nation. We’re already doing it in Colorado. And the same integration of startups and established organizations occurring here can occur anywhere. All that’s required is a desire to reimagine health care, and a willingness to work together.