“Healthcare Disruption without Fragmentation: Strategies for Success” – John Harris, Director & Danielle Bangs, Principal
Topics
Disruptive innovators in healthcare are capitalizing on the weaknesses of traditional providers, offering convenience, effective technology, and lower cost. Disruptors provide better access, skim more profitable patients and services, and align with payers while pocketing the savings. But many incumbent providers recognize that patients accessing care from a hodgepodge of disruptors leads to fragmentation and does yield an effective patient care system. We are trading one approach that was not sufficiently focused on patient experience for another that is structurally challenged to provide an integrated patient care experience.
Hospitals, health systems, and physician practices are on their heels. Economists say competition improves value for consumers. But will this round of disruptive competition help consumers, or just skim profits for innovators who find a niche to exploit? Competition will help if health systems can use the external disruptive threats to drive needed change in their organizations.
In this presentation, we will examine which disruptive innovators are taking hold, the threat to incumbent providers, and what the incumbents can do to respond.
Options include:
- Up your game – addressing the weakness that powers most innovative disruption: convenience
- Partner with disruptors – selectively engaging innovators to up your game, capitalizing on your existing patient base
- Reinforce relationships – demonstrating the value of continuity over fragmentation by building a system with effective communication among primary and specialty care, and patient care is coordinated within a single EMR
For disruptors, the challenge is flipped. How can disruptors integrate effectively into delivery systems rather than being a narrowly focused solution that addresses one issue but fragments care.