Big markets attract innovators, right? US health care is a $2 trillion operation. And nearly everyone would agree the American system is outrageously expensive, leaves out large chunks of the population, and provides incredibly poor customer service.
Normally a market opportunity like this would attract innovators like Homer Simpson to donuts. But who is the Thomas Edison, Dean Kamen or Steve Jobs of health care, wonders Harvard Business School professor Regina Herzlinger in an HBS Alumni Bulletin op-ed. She writes:
Can you name any innovators in our bloated, inefficient health-care system? While there is innovation in the medical technology and health-insurance sectors, when it comes to health services, the 800-pound gorilla of our system, entrepreneurs are nowhere to be found. And their absence has enabled the status quo providers to get fat and sloppy.
Why is this so? Herzlinger says entrepreneurs know they have little chance to succeed against entrenched providers, supported by by legislators and insurance companies. “Unlike any other US industry,” she continues, “consumers do not set prices, yet they provide all the money through taxes for government programs and forgone salaries for employer-provided benefits. A third party — a government or an insurance company — not only sets the prices but goes so far as to specify procedures and even the kinds of patients to be covered.”
So here is your chance for glory, fame and, certainly, riches. All you have to do figure out how to repair or disrupt the medical status-quo. What is the iPod of health care? What’s your first step?
Additional reading: Is Health Care Making You Better — or Dead?
(Doctor image by Pingnews.com, CC 2.0)
