GO DEEP AND BUILD SOMETHING

 

Healthcare is experiencing rapid change at an enormous scale. We are in the midst of an inevitable collision between a highly complex system that was already becoming increasingly inefficient and multiple fronts of rapidly advancing technology, computerization and data leverage. I believe it's a mistake to consider IT as the sole overarching driver of this transformation. This perspective tends to limit the ability to appreciate and account for the scope and highly complex balance of human and human augmenting processes. These need guided evolution in a deliberate and strategic way to assure we all arrive in the vicinity of where so many universally touted aims have been pointing.

 

My unique opportunities being immersed in this exciting but also trying transition for the last 15 years have fostered the realization and routine practice of applying a blend of experiential clinical insight, artistic creativity and commitment to objective analytics. This multi-faceted approach led to the uncovering of unappreciated opportunities and the successful revision of product and process-driven ecosystems. "Right Brain Left Brain" is a method of thought that taps a hybridized reservoir of synergistic disciplines. Drawing on combinations of these disciplines and skill sets so often leads to innovative success with more robust solutions from ideation and design/development to coordination and implementation of interrelated functions and stakeholders to true adoption with measurable impact through data capture and analytics.

I think we need more colleagues who have a thorough grasp of the context, nuances and interconnections across the whole healthcare landscape. This requires the ability to blend an applied mix of skills and experiences reinforced by learning and exposures; the need to learn how to learn. An environment where routine support for new thinking methodologies thrives without the common tendency to label this as "overthinking" or "too philosophical".

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The complicated healthcare ecosystem involves:

• the psychology of change

• fear of the unknown

• the need for continuous learning

• the humility to recognize inevitable failures

• the ethical and altruistic nature of quality care provision

• leadership that judiciously guides change management

• coping with major paradigm shifts

• increasingly rapid and constant evolution of functional technologies

• the requirements of data literacy

• the modern mandate for adaptability on many levels

 

It should be no surprise that, likewise, the solutions would necessarily be complex, multi-disciplinary and take into account a wide range of competencies that all need to work in alignment.

 

We should always be untangling and reflecting on experiences, successes and failures to most effectively define and articulate a role for you or your organization that has impact. I believe the successful application of this approach has variations and is worth further developing. Some may argue that this is not a novel concept since these disciplines are often applied in a coordinated way in product and service lifecycles and I somewhat agree. However, what I am more specifically describing is the routine thinking using intertwined disciplines that reinforce each other in the ideation and everything subsequent to it. The consideration of interdependent effects and how they can be leveraged as opposed to compromised, which is so often the case, is how best to solve the highly complex and interdependent barriers to a healthcare transition.

I am very confident that multi-disciplinary fluency as a way of thinking is vastly superior to disparate considerations that lead to fragmented discipline-dependent incorporations as the latter are prone to require iterative revisions and retro-fitting.

 

This is economically and temporally costly, less satisfying for the stakeholders (including the end-users) and often frustrating to get into place. Whether it is appreciated or not, relevant solutions are created for problems in real-world context and so have conceptual processes, operational realities, valid and often critical psychological and emotional implications and overarching ethical, compliance and regulatory guardrails. Addressing and satisfying these nuances that are very much a part of the problem to be solved clearly requires a type of thinking that naturally speaks to them from the start. To miss this is to treat a multitude of valid concerns and often critical oversights as unavoidable collateral damage rather than being intellectually honest about the problem in its entirety, which requires the creative application of these varied skill sets.

 

This approach may require more intellectual capital, deeper research and earlier iterations that take into account the existing real-world context but it invariably leads to a higher assurance of improved care quality, the increased likelihood of new vertical discovery with concomitant revenue generation, smoother and thus more effective implementation and overall more rapid and higher percentages of adoption. Further, with healthcare being such a complicated web of interconnected parts, the ultimate recipient being the patient's wellbeing and the disruption to care delivery because of downtime intolerance, banging through the implementation of non-accommodating products and services may cause not only ill-will but potentially significant patient harm.

 

I plan to use this site to describe my experiences with the Right Brain Left Brain approach described above and continue formulating how it can better drive real-world innovation within the complex healthcare space.

 

The site also introduces me professionally to colleagues interested in new ways of thinking, potential partners, clients and/or employers looking to incorporate my skills, experience and innovative approach in what I hope to be an exciting, collaborative arrangement that leverages my talent constellation for a purpose that is impactful.  

 

I also genuinely hope this site might act as a forum for anyone interested in free idea exchange and engagement so as to advance cross-disciplinary thought leadership on topics relevant to the goal of real-world healthcare transition.

 

 

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