Clayton Christensen’s Institute has published insightful reports for aspiring healthcare entrepreneurs and leaders. In an earlier blog post, I summarized Christensen’s report on healthcare innovation, “How disruptive innovation can finally revolutionize Healthcare” (2017). In this blog post, I will summarize another one of their reports on healthcare, “Health for hire: unleashing patient potential to reduce chronic disease costs” (October 2017)
Executive summary and overview of the report
America’s epidemic of chronic disease affects more than half of the American population and consumes 86% of the $3.2 trillion spent each year on care. “To prevent and reduce the cost of managing chronic disease, the system must learn to facilitate change in individual behavior, which has the greatest impact on health of any contributing factor, including healthcare.”
“A jobs-based approach to healthcare delivery is particularly suited to chronic disease management, for five reasons:
- Takes into account patients’ full capacity to change,
- Works with patients’ existing beliefs about health
- Illuminates the broader determinants of individual health status
- Clarifies the real competition to healthy behavior
- Shifts units of performance from outcomes to progress”
The report further quotes research that supports “health-centric purpose”:
Conclusion of “Health for Hire” Report
The “health for hire” report concludes by reiterating the point that America’s epidemic of chronic disease is due to a “gap between the kind of care chronically ill people need, and the episodic, acute care or traditional healthcare system is designed to provide.”
It encourages leaders and entrepreneurs in healthcare to learn from the example of Iora Health, Weight Watchers, Bromley by Bow Centre, and other innovations. It emphasizes that “using the theory of jobs to be done, healthcare innovators can bridge this gap by creating health solutions that people have both the will and capacity to embrace, and which unleash their potential to manage their health more effectively and independently.”
The report is well-worth reading page-to-page and is accessable at the Christensen’s Institute.
