Recently in Health System Design Category

In health care, possibly more than other industries, we consider ourselves so expert that innovation is generally expected to come from within - and deep within at that. Can We Innovate Ourselves Out of Recession published July 1, 2009 in the Knowledge@Wharton column on Forbes. Com examines a different approach taken by industry. It describes the effective use of external innovation networks to generate solutions to technical problems in the non health care world. It occurred to me that health care leaders might want to consider how to harness fresh ideas from smart people outside our somewhat insular industry...

Don't Wait to Innovate by Dev Patnaik and Peter Mortensen of Jump Associates is a short column about improvements at a disability claims processor that appeared in the online edition of Business Week on April 27. It was touted as an example of the potential power of innovation for enhancing performance in an already successful business. How could this be relevant to real health care? Well, I saw it completely differently. It was really all about how injecting humanity into a business resulted in decreasing resource use and liability - thereby enhancing customer satisfaction, decreasing costs, and increasing profitability. Sound like outcomes we could use in health care? Read on...

Everyone's abuzz about the Tata Nano. The world's cheapest car is taking India, and the world, by storm. Leveraging the wundercar's impending launch, Business Week (on March 18, 2009) asked the critical question in its eponymous article: What Can Tata's Nano Teach Detroit? I immediately tried to leverage their question to your advantage - so I began to wonder about what the Nano can teach health care leaders...