Intermountain innovation chief: Healthcare must have a 'passion for people'

LAS VEGAS - While startups and other corporate evangelicals may think it's better to fail fast, innovation models in healthcare would do better to establish a culture of learning instead of one that celebrates failure, according to Todd Dunn, director of innovation at Utah-based Intermountain Healthcare.

"In this industry, were just going to keep getting better, healthcare is not going to stop getting better," he said, delivering the keynote address at Monday's Revenue Cycle Solutions Summit at HIMSS16 in Las Vegas. "We have to be courageous and to know that we are going to learn and that we are going to test things over and over again."

While many businesses rely on people to drive their business models, no other industry hinges so completely on showing empathy to the customers it caters to than healthcare, Dunn said.

"It's about people, and the most empathetic people I have ever met are those who are right there taking care of a patient," he said. 

But while empathy should be the first step in healthcare innovation, it needs to be followed by endless curiosity and a commitment to rapid learning experiments.

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Intermountain is no stranger to innovation. The system's CEO Charles Sorenson last week visited the White House to meet with Vice President Joe Biden about his "moonshot" cancer project, which aims to improve treatment to eventually find a cure for the disease.

Also, the health system, which operates 22 hospitals and 185 clinics and oversees $5 billion in annual patient revenue, runs a fully integrated revenue cycle system.
Intermountain's innovation model relies heavily on patient experience, and to that end Dunn said the system tends to draw its ideas from the point of clinical encounters, and not its company boardroom.

"We don't see patients in conference rooms," he said. "We should be thinking about getting into the context of where care is actually delivered."

A people-centered approach to innovation goes beyond patients and extends to staff, Dunn said, which creates a few intricacies to keep in mind when thinking about jobs tied to innovation models.

[Also: Intermountain revenue cycle VP: Hospitals are on the hook for price transparency]

Dunn said organizations should look beyond the functional when creating jobs and make sure you are staffing to fill social and emotional needs of patients as well.

Of course, a focus on the revenue side of any new project is essential, Dunn said.
For example, while the social needs filled by Uber's more modern approach to taxi service has helped that company transform the market, its huge success comes mainly because it changed how people pay for their rides, he said.

Innovation really is crucial for healthcare, which is seeing a host of issues tied to high deductibles, physician shortages and productivity issues related to regulation changes such as the October 2015 switch to ICD-10. But to do so, all parties need to avoid blaming one another and instead should make a team approach to problem solving the highest priority.

"We are the masters of this industry's fate," Dunn said. "We are the captains of its soul."

Twitter: @HenryPowderly