The right breeding ground for healthcare innovation
What working at a Belgian HealthTech Incubator is teaching me about healthcare innovation, and how Ghent is becoming the main hub for it.
I have a deep interest in health entrepreneurship and innovation. My role at BlueHealth Innovation Center allows me to meet numerous HealthTech startup founders, organize inspirational events and workshop sessions on health innovation, as well as help support the digital transformation of our Belgian healthcare industry by advocating for change in both educational and care institutions in the greater Ghent region.
Being heavily challenged by innovators and entrepreneurs with new digital technology solutions, our healthcare industry is about to witness tremendous change in the coming years. I’m fortunate to be surrounded by many inspiring individuals that are paving the way towards a healthcare system that is patient-centered and value-based at its core.
I’d love to share some of the things I learn along the way.
Therefore, I’ll be writing a monthly blog article, highlighting some of the insights I’m gathering from intruiging conversations with HealthTech founders and experts, as well as some of my learnings from noteworthy keynotes, memorable events, interesting initiatives, new startups and other significant developments in the region.
The right breeding ground for health innovation
Ghent is on track to become a renowed hub for health technology innovation, with access to its extensive network of world-leading educational institutions, state-of-the-art research infrastructure, dedicated knowledge clusters, global pharmaceutical players, and excellent hospitals and care organisations, all closely knit together by several innovation and entrepreneurship initiatives.
The city aims to build a Medical Technology Cluster as big as its BioTech Cluster (which is pretty impressive to say the least), the Ghent University Hospital just recently went through a restructuring effort to streamline innovation processes, Ghent University has several research consortia focusing on new cutting-edge health technologies, the H-Impact program will be launched for the first time in September this year, the imec.istart HealthTech vertical is growing and BlueHealth Innovation Center has opened its doors to stimulate student-entrepreneurship, help care organisations realize the potential of digital transformation, as well as incubate HealthTech startups in the broader region.
It’s only been 6 months since I started working at BlueHealth Innovation Center, but it’s been great to witness the collective effort of many organisations in Ghent towards a dedicated culture of healthcare innovation. Slowly but steadily, many pieces of this complicated puzzle are falling into place. I’m expecting lots of new insights to come up to the surface as these initiatives move forward.
There’s always a ‘but’
All of the above is pretty amazing, but there is more to healthcare innovation than having access to an ecosystem with all the relevant stakeholders. Even though these organisational stakeholders prove to prioritize on implementing new innovations, zooming in on the individual stakeholder — being the healthcare professionals themselves — often gives you a different version of the story.
That’s why I’d like to start off this series of blog articles by touching upon something I’ve picked up quite a few times now, which is also one of the most important things that can hold back proper innovation in our rigid healthcare system. It’s not the lack of presence of new digital tools and technologies, but the lack of willingness to adopt and implement them into our everyday lives. Often, it’s the individual care professionals’ fear of losing (part of) his/her job.
A message to healthcare professionals
Dear healthcare professionals, new digital tools and technologies aren’t coming for your jobs. But healthcare professionals that are embracing and using new digital tools and technologies are.
Put yourself in your patients’ shoes. Wouldn’t you want to be treated by someone who’s using medically approved technologies to assist him/her in generating objective insights in order to enhance his/her decision making? To increase your chances of success?
Yes, your role will most likely change in the coming years. But why is that a bad thing? For most healthcare professionals, the impossibility to further sustain our current healthcare model should be obvious. Healthcare costs are rising significantly and an increasingly ageing population isn’t making it much easier. New digital tools could help drive costs down, foster a better relationship between the patient and healthcare professional and increase efficiencies for all stakeholders. But only if it’s done properly. If not, health technology could indeed make your job as a healthcare professional more cumbersome, or even harm the patient experience instead of improving it.
Why think of it as a collision between the worlds of ‘digital’ and ‘healthcare’, when we could, and should, think of it as a marriage. A marriage requires proactive efforts on both sides in order to make it work. Digital minds need healthcare expertise in order for them to build something that’s relevant and helpful. You, as a healthcare professional, are perfectly positioned to deliver on the most crucial thing there is for healthcare innovation: your insights. Without the ability to co-design and co-create with the right insights, the potential of these new digital technologies go to waste. Your opinions, expertise and knowledge are paramount. And this is equally true for any other healthcare stakeholder.
Doesn’t it make sense to do everything we can to develop a better, more accessible and cost-effective healthcare system? To do everything we can to help patients in the best way possible? I’m sure that’s the reason why each of us got into healthcare in the first place.
How are we to reshape our healthcare education so that students realize the impact of new digital tools on their profession? How are we to rethink it so that graduates are capable of coping with rapid change in their sector? How are care organisations to be managed so that every employee is incentivized to help support the digital transformation of their organisation? How are these organisations to be managed so that patients are incentivized to do the same?
When creative digital minds are to meet healthcare stakeholders in a co-creative environment, and healthcare students are primed for the future of their industry during their education, amazing things could happen. Only then, we’ve developed the right breeding ground for healthcare innovation.
I’m excited to be part of a collective vision to build a dedicated innovation culture within our healthcare industry. A vision that goes beyond bringing together all relevant stakeholders. One where individual healthcare stakeholders not only realize the benefits of digital transformation, but actively participate in the shaping of it.
I’m looking forward to share my thoughts on all that’s happening in the near future to achieve this. Stay tuned!
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