Digital Health Innovation for Doctors

by David Hall

Medical Devices & Digital Health

Purpose
This paper analyzes how healthcare institutions can empower doctors to lead digital health innovations through Digital Innovation Upskilling Programs (DIUP). This study demonstrates how doctor-innovators reduce costly stress and burnout (est. 500K USD) by being involved in the innovative process, how healthcare institutions (esp. medium sized hospitals 100-400 beds) can achieve significant results in Value Based Healthcare (VBH) and innovation through doctor empowerment resulting in digital health technologies that improve patient care delivery and outcomes.

Methods
To answer this question, we employed scientific methods and proprietary approaches such as Change Management, XLR8 Accelerate Dual Process Model (Business as usual on the Left, Innovation on the Right), Deliberate Practice, Flipped Learning (Preview, Live Interactive, Review), Digital Literacy Scorecards, Kirkpatrick’s Model (4 level evaluation), and Developing New Mindsets. We also analyzed VBH healthcare related data including patient satisfaction, and other data on hospital performance, revenue, profitability.

Results
Our results showed a direct positive relationship between Doctor Digital Upskilling, supported access of a Digital Health Innovation Platform (DHIP) and significant improvement of Value Based Healthcare (VBH) based on a measurement checklist (including reduced cost, patient satisfaction, improved outcomes). Further results show drastic improvement in Doctor Digital Literacy demonstrated by the frequency and application of digital health skills before and after the study. New innovations can also be directly attributed to doctor-innovator co-design and co-creation of new digital health technologies based on their expertise at the Point of Care (POC) that improved patient care delivery, patient outcomes, patient overall wellness, decreased cost and increased hospital revenues, and provided multiple streams of revenue to the hospital from newly created digital health innovations. Human-Centered Design Innovation led by doctors also improved adoption rates of the new digital health technologies due to doctor involvement that improved the safety, efficacy, demonstrated Real Life Experiences (RLE), doctor ratings on the platform by specialty, and recommendations from one trusted doctor to another that overcomes the current barrier to adoption which is the resistance to unproven digital health technologies being “pushed on” doctors and hospitals from the outside.

Implications
From an innovation perspective, this study demonstrated the importance of human-centered design starting with developing new doctor mindsets, (e.g. design thinking, exponential thinking including the 6 D’s), then “must have” digital innovation core competencies, digital literacy for doctors and the need to empower doctors as leaders of digital health innovation in order for medium sized hospitals to solve their current serious “pains” during this pandemic and to prepare for the inevitable next pandemic.