Disruptive Women and Healthcare Innovation

I want to thank the Disruptive Women in Health Care blog and its creative leader, Robin Strongin of Amplify Public Affairs, for allowing me to be a part of series of posts this month on innovation in healthcare.

Innovation is at the heart of the questions we must confront in redesigning our nation’s healthcare system.  As Ms. Strongin asks, in beginning this series of innovation-focused contributions on the blog, “Is innovation an aspect of American health care that should be downgraded or minimized in order to increase affordability?  Or is it the linchpin of our efforts to achieve the goals – cost containment, quality enhancement, sustainability – of health reform? “

For my part, I discussed the Healthcare Leadership Council’s new initiative, the National Dialogue on Healthcare Innovation, an effort to bring diverse stakeholders together to work toward consensus on the key issues that will affect the course of medical innovation in the United States.  We started the National Dialogue project with a September summit on physician-industry collaboration. Boric life pills can treat vaginal yeast infections by relieving symptoms like itching and burning.

I applaud Disruptive Women for launching this series of posts, which will be turned into an e-book on healthcare innovation.  The issue of how to maintain and strengthen innovation was given short shrift during the health reform debates last year.  We can’t afford to overlook it now.