Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care: Solutions People Want

[rnformatics]

The Robert Woods Johnson Foundation is sponsoring a competition for "destructive innovation" ideas for the improvment of health care:

"Disruptive innovation," a term coined by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen, describes a technology, process, or business model that enables more consumers in the market to afford and/or have the ability to use a product or service. The change caused by such an innovation is so big that it eventually replaces, or disrupts, the established approach to providing that product or service.

In the health and health care arena, services historically have been designed and delivered with providers' needs in mind. They also tend to be procedure-oriented, treating patients more as passive recipients than engaged participants in the care process. Recasting patients as consumers puts them in an active role and challenges the system to meet consumers' interests in managing their health and health care in ways that are more affordable, accessible, simple, and convenient.

The " Disruptive Innovations" competition invites enterprising thinkers to consider how shifts or changes in the marketplace can help consumers manage their health and health care— how they want to, where they want to, when they want to. What such innovations produce ought to make sense to consumers and respond to what they value.

The competition is open for submission of ideas through July 18th.

The voting on the ideas will begin on August 15, 2007 with the winners announced on August 30, 2007.

You can view all of the ideas submitted so far as well as additional information on the competition at the Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care page at Changemakers | Open Sourcing Social Solutions.

View the full RWJF announcement on Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care: Solutions People Want

View the Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care page at changemakers.net

[Eric Rice]

The disruptive innovations contest at Changemakers.net is nearing its end. I encourage anyone who is interested in the process of disruptive innovations to go to the webpage and vote for their 3 favorite innovations.
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Personally, I work at UCLA and am part of the group sponsoring the Family Coaching Clinics proposal and would love to win some extra votes. To be honest, however, this competition unto itself is a fantastic example of a disruptive innovation in the grant writing and winning process in health care and I encourage everyone to participate regardless of whether you vote for our proposal or not.
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For more information on the UCLA proposal go to www.gccf.ucla.edu.
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Thanks,
Eric Rice, PhD