While this title may apply to private equity firms at the enterprise level, it is not as applicable to businesses involving the average consumer. Nowadays, consumers expect corporations to responsibly source products and promote some sort of greater good. As an industry, healthcare has not yet fully adopted this concept, leading to suboptimal business and health outcomes. The business of consumer-focused business should rely on trust.
The American healthcare system is much akin to the Wild Wild West. Compensation for physicians is incentivized to maximize diagnostic tests and frequency of office visits. Patients constantly question whether certain steps in treatment plans are medically necessary or just for financial profit, creating mistrust. Mistrust leads to suboptimal consumption of healthcare, loss-to-follow up and poorer health outcomes.
I see this happen everyday in clinic. As a healthcare provider, I visualize myself in the position of a salesperson convincing customers that the treatment plan I provide is the most sound for their long-term health. I do this in order to earn patients trust, and create customer loyalty so that they return to the doctor’s office to stay healthy, not just when they fall ill.
Healthcare innovation has been a driver of brewing mistrust within the American patient population, because profit-driven models and patient outcomes are largely divergent. For example, the pharmaceutical industry is focused on developing blockbuster drugs that can generate billions of dollars in order to recoup the astronomical costs of research and development. In 2013, the five most profitable drugs were brand-name pills for which treatments have existed for over 50 years. Meanwhile, progress in HIV treatments, cancer cures and prevention of transmissible disease are largely ignored because the innovation in those specific areas does not offer much financial reward.
Restoration of trust in medicine is necessary in order for the industry to survive, and it will be vital to identify companies that link profit models with good patient outcomes. An example of a company that embraces this concept, and is significantly benefiting the healthcare system is Breakthrough. This company created a platform for streaming psychiatric services over the Internet, providing many people who live in rural areas with mental health services for the first time. Because it exists entirely online, Breakthrough avoids many of the traditional operational costs that most medical practices endure. Breakthrough merges technological innovation and promising revenue model to solve an important problem in healthcare that has been previously ignored.
When innovation for the benefit of the healthcare system as a whole becomes the dominant trend in healthcare, we will start to see that patients will begin to trust healthcare providers more. There is a tremendous potential for the private sector to create opportunities that are congruent with improving patient outcomes. Whether or not the healthcare sector catches on dictates the business of healthcare and the future of our health.
The American healthcare system is much akin to the Wild Wild West. Compensation for physicians is incentivized to maximize diagnostic tests and frequency of office visits. Patients constantly question whether certain steps in treatment plans are medically necessary or just for financial profit, creating mistrust. Mistrust leads to suboptimal consumption of healthcare, loss-to-follow up and poorer health outcomes.
I see this happen everyday in clinic. As a healthcare provider, I visualize myself in the position of a salesperson convincing customers that the treatment plan I provide is the most sound for their long-term health. I do this in order to earn patients trust, and create customer loyalty so that they return to the doctor’s office to stay healthy, not just when they fall ill.
Healthcare innovation has been a driver of brewing mistrust within the American patient population, because profit-driven models and patient outcomes are largely divergent. For example, the pharmaceutical industry is focused on developing blockbuster drugs that can generate billions of dollars in order to recoup the astronomical costs of research and development. In 2013, the five most profitable drugs were brand-name pills for which treatments have existed for over 50 years. Meanwhile, progress in HIV treatments, cancer cures and prevention of transmissible disease are largely ignored because the innovation in those specific areas does not offer much financial reward.
Restoration of trust in medicine is necessary in order for the industry to survive, and it will be vital to identify companies that link profit models with good patient outcomes. An example of a company that embraces this concept, and is significantly benefiting the healthcare system is Breakthrough. This company created a platform for streaming psychiatric services over the Internet, providing many people who live in rural areas with mental health services for the first time. Because it exists entirely online, Breakthrough avoids many of the traditional operational costs that most medical practices endure. Breakthrough merges technological innovation and promising revenue model to solve an important problem in healthcare that has been previously ignored.
When innovation for the benefit of the healthcare system as a whole becomes the dominant trend in healthcare, we will start to see that patients will begin to trust healthcare providers more. There is a tremendous potential for the private sector to create opportunities that are congruent with improving patient outcomes. Whether or not the healthcare sector catches on dictates the business of healthcare and the future of our health.