It’s January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade?

On December 8th, the 4th annual World HealthCare Innovation and Technology Conference 2008 will open in Washington, DC. The afternoon keynote address, by Newt Gingrich, former Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives, is built on the theme of “Innovation, Technology and Competition: Transitioning to a 21st Century Intelligent Health System.”

I’m quite certain that Mr. Gingrich will offer some compelling thoughts on how to fix health care. And yet I’m certain that the prescription he offers will be much of the same old thinking that seems to dominate the health care agenda.

I’m the closing keynote speaker, on Wednesday, December 10th. I’m honored to speak at an event that includes Mr. Gingrich and other luminaries such as Scott McNealy, Chairman and Co-Founder, Sun Microsystems and Colin Angle, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder, iRobot.

What am I focussing on? My keynote will stress that right now is the time for big, bold, transformative thinking in the world of health care. We’re on the edge of something pretty big, both in terms of the depths of the challenge, and yet with the scope of the innovative solutions and thinking that are coming to the marketplace.

That’s an important message, because it’s hard to be an innovator right now anywhere, particularly within the health care industry.

Part of my job is to transform ideas — so I just wrote an entry for the blog for this global conference, writing from the year 2020, looking back at what we learned in the previous twelve years.
Here’s what I wrote in 2020 about why the mindset of 2008 made for difficulties with innovative thinking:

At the time, the economic malaise that was settling in had caused most innovators to shrink away, convinced their ideas for the future had no place and time for consideration. Fear, mediocrity and staid thinking ruled the health care agenda; everyone spoke of applying the same old band-aid solutions in a different way to the same problems, with no obvious results in sight.

But where did we really end up with health care by 2020? Take a look and read the blog.

• It’s January 15, 2020: What Have We Learned About Healthcare in the Last Decade?
• Future Medicine: Prescriptions for 21st Century Health Care