Hacking health is trending in 2016. That is not to say that the application of agile practices in healthcare are entirely new but it has now gained momentum and global recognition.
Hacking in healthcare appears a hot topic for 2016. Here we explore these new converging ideas. Scott Brinker nicely portrays Hacking as inventive, building through agility, transparency, collaboration yet steered by strategy.
“Hacking Health is about breaking down barriers to innovation in healthcare, and we mean it. This is the last frontier, this is the last industry that yet has to be transformed by agile approached and digital technologies. Put hackathons are ways to demonstrate that a lot can be achieved when people work collaboratively together, building solutions rapidly and with and agile approach. We hope to inspire enterprises and institutions to do it for real now…. And transform healthcare, and health altogether”; says Luc Sirois, co-founder and leader at Hacking Health.
Hacking Health is a Montreal based organization which is expanded exponentially around the world through cafes and hackathons bring technologists, healthcare practitioners and entrepreneurs together to solve healthcare problems.
Hacking Marketing
Scott Brinker’s excellent book Hacking Marketing: Agile practices to make marketing smarter, faster and more innovative could not have coincided at a more apt time.
“Managing for outcomes instead of activities is one of the key principles of agile and lean thinking. It inspires greater creativity and entrepreneurship across the team”; states Brinker
The premise of Brinker’s book is that the software IT teams in corporations quickly appreciated early on that the speed of the digital revolution required a new approach to managing projects. Many of us have experienced marketing software projects delivered through sprints.
As one would expect from Scott Brinker this is examined through the lens of the inbound marketing methodology.
“Marketing is a digital profession”
Cure Brain Cancer Foundation
Our Charity Spotlight on Australia’s Cure Brain Cancer Foundation exemplifies the agile, hacking mentality applied to healthcare.
Led by CEO, Catherine Stace, Cure Brain Cancer has spurned an international collaborative effort which fosters an agile, hackathon spirit.
Hacking Health Waterloo
I am embarrassed to say that until recently I had not appreciated the depth of the technology community in Kitchener Waterloo Region They are more than 1,100 tech companies, including many Medtech start-ups addressing the healthcare sector. I was fortunate to recently attend the Accelerator Centre in Waterloo. Waterloo Region was described by the Globe and Mail as
“One of the best places in the world to build a technology company”
Our health outcome model work has a vibe of that agile, hacking approach by open collaboration with different stakeholders. There is also a strong data component to measuring outcomes. I would argue that this is not big data and the data is anonymized. It is about successfully identifying the minimum number of leading quality health indicators that can be predictive of outcomes. This is combined with senior executive leadership driving a cultural change through an organization until that very change becomes embedded as everyday practice.
“Start with the facts, which are the data on outcomes that you produce for your patients. If you make them transparent to your clinical teams and to the public, in time, the rest of the value agenda will follow.” Dr. Caleb Stowell, VP of Standardization and Business Development, ICHOM*
I will be presenting core messages from this Health Outcome Models white paper at the Hacking Health Waterloo café in April.
DOWNLOAD OUR FREE HEALTH OUTCOME MODELS WHITE PAPER
To summarise, we encourage your to
- read Hacking Marketing by Scott Brinker and
- register to attend a Hacking Health cafe near you.
“Bring the hacker way to how you work.”
Images reproduced with kind permission of Scott Brinker
*ICHOM International Consortium for Health Outcomes Measurement