Christensen talks about healthcare providers and how he believes they can come up with a solution. There are three ways, the value-added processes, solution shops, and facilitated networks. Most hospitals have a model where there is both value-added and solution shops which Christensen finds to be very inefficient. What I liked is Christensen gives us a couple of examples of hospitals that he thinks are doing a good job in providing healthcare in the models described above. I encourage people to check them out and see why.
Another Health system Christensen talks about is the National Jewish Health. They are what Christensen calls a solution shop. He gives the example of a friend who suffered from asthma and had large expenses in prescription costs every month but he was still having problems despite the large amount of money for scripts and the many doctors he saw. When he went to the National Jewish Medical and Research Center, he was able to work with a team of specialist that were able to focus on the root cause of his asthma and solved his problem. How did they do it? As stated on their website, they are "known worldwide for treatment of patients with lung, heart, and immune diseases and for groundbreaking medical research. Founded in 1899 as a nonprofit hospital, it remains the only facility in the world dedicated exclusively to these disorders." They are ranked #1 in respiratory care in the nation according to their site. They are able to do this because they only focus on particular diseases and therefore are able to have a set of test that can be performed and then the specialist come together, review the test, and have a straightforward therapy for the patient. Since they are working together instead of separately this is more patient focused and the solutions are more effective both with time and money. Their primary focus appears to be on research as seen in their strategic plan on their website. The only time it talks about patients is in their "clinical" section where they say "increase patient care to support greater breadth and depth of services; improve quality and performance; and take a leadership role in individualized medicine and personalized healthcare." The rest of the strategic plan talks about research, faculty, entrepreneurial ventures and philanthropy (which in their statement consist of increasing donor base and funding opportunities).The two hospitals have very different models. One is the fixed-fee integrated system with a focus on wellness and the other is a solution shop with a focus on certain disease process to more effectively diagnose the problem and then are reimbursed on a fee-for-service. It seems to me that what Geisinger Health Systems has more of a patient-centered focus which in my opinion is a better way of disrupting innovation. Although both hospitals have great concepts, in the big picture what is really going to change healthcare is the economic benefits that can be seen in the billions in the Geisinger Health System. Both have a strong focus on research but Geisinger focuses on increasing value for the patient and National Jewish Health research focus is on integrates clinical and promotes innovation and collaboration. Neither is right or wrong, but when companies loose sight of the customer (in their case the patients) in the big picture, they ultimately will not be as successful at disrupting.
If you want to have a better understanding of how disruptive innovation works, I highly recommend the two 9 min videos that the co-author Jason Hwang
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