Healthcare Innovation is Sick — And Here’s the Cure

The diagnosis is in, and Healthcare, you’re sick! Well, at least in terms of innovation.

According to a study by the McKinsey Global Institute, health care ranks among the bottom five of all industries for digital advancement — even below the government. Those long waits at the DMV? We’re even worse than that!

So what’s the treatment, you ask? Innovate like your life depended on it.

You see, innovation thinkers thrive on risk, change, and speed. They ask for forgiveness and not for permission. They’re not afraid to stare failure in the eye, because you know what? At least they’re facing forward. How do you spot one of these rare breeds in the wild? They’re usually the ones frantically waving their hands at the bad micro-moments and inefficiencies, annoying the hell out of the establishment.

Health care professionals, on the other hand, live by the oath, “Do no harm” — as they should. But for some, hearing about risk, change, speed, and potential failure all in one sentence might set off an acute case of hypertension. Yet if empathy is a core driver for these key individuals in healthcare, wouldn’t they be the ones holding the secret sauce for unlocking innovations that make people actually want to go to the doctor?

Our team at Revance X has traveled the U.S. meeting dozens of plastic surgeons, dermatologists, business owners, nurses, and office managers to uncover critical innovation problems for practices. We’ve honed in on three key issues and share with you how they can be cured.

Sickness #1: “Fast” is a bad word

In healthcare, failing fast can feel frightening given lives are at stake, but making “fast” the bad guy sidelines innovation in favor of that soul-crushing methodical slog. I mean, don’t get us wrong — we know no one wants to fail right out of the gate, but ask yourself: Is failing slowly really that much better?

Your patients want an experience that’s simple, efficient, and maybe (gasp!) a little enjoyable. Medicine might leave a bad taste in your mouth, but the experience doesn’t have to.

So how do we fix it?

Cure: Freedom from corporate antibodies

It starts with getting the right people in the room: Frontline workers, subject matter experts, and key thinkers across departments and levels. The key? No top management allowed.

Make space for psychological safety at the table and ask the people working directly with patients the right questions: “How are we failing at the micro-moment levels?” Do we fix intake? Scheduling? Access? Watch your staff go from gutless to gutsy with ideas they’ve probably been brewing all along.

Then, make change happen fast (with safety strategies in place) and scale from there. It’s time to embrace the iterative process and welcome fresh perspectives — from the slightly scary moonshot shots to small improvements inspired by water cooler whispers.

At the end of the day, it’s all about whether you have SAGA — the Safety to experiment, the Authority to act, the Guts for taking chances, and the ability to take Action. How many do you have?

Sickness #2: Tradition for tradition’s sake

We’d hate to admit it, but the fear of moving too fast sometimes means we’re not moving at all. We hear it so often across all industries that we do things a certain way because we’ve always done it that way. But letting the status quo dictate your vision only perpetuates bottlenecks and inefficiencies.

Cure: Get closer to the patient

For the fix, we need to do away with the, “It’s good enough because we still have appointments on the calendar” mentality. Today’s healthcare consumer hits Submit on Yelp faster than they fill out that suggestion box index card, so let yourself become obsessed with improving the patient experience through innovation.

What if we took a hint from Uber and moved payment processing into the fast lane with a tool like OPUL? Or try sending a post-visit survey and appointment-request form directly to each patient’s cell phone?

Fix enough micro-moments and watch your business flourish as a result. Listen, change, and check. Wash, rinse, and repeat.

Sickness #3: Not thinking big enough

At the end of the day, medical practices are businesses, but business-first thinking only gets you so far. In order to shift the healthcare sector away from institutional thinking and towards the other end of the dynamic rainbow, we need to align our interests towards innovating together, perhaps even finding best practices from other industries.

Cure: Inspire a little friendly competition

Start your own Who’s Who with collaborative business partners from any industry, and only give the passcode those who are hungry for change and eager to find ways to improve the customer or patient experience.

We’ve recently seen how well healthcare integrates with IT in telemedicine. And about that lobby full of impatient patients? Try a virtual waiting room next time as a nod to the restaurant industry.

Most importantly, when you’ve tried something bold and new in your own establishment, share these successes and failures (yes, the failures too) with colleagues. Innovation thrives on knowledge-based currency, and passing along proven strategies is the key to ensuring we stay connected to the “why” of patient care for continued excellence in this industry.

What’s Next?

The great news is that healthcare innovation is already happening, but little of it is discussed. In aesthetics, the field has embraced new ways to handle patient intake, consultations, payments, even financing. These shifts require ideation, buy-in, testing, and iteration.

Our Revance X team is obsessively focused on improving practice inefficiencies and profitability. If you’re equally passionate about design thinking and innovation in this industry, send us a message! The future is bright for our industry, and we’re just getting started.

Cheers,
The Revance X Team