Innovating in Technology: Cleveland Clinic Keeps Moving Forward

More than ever. In the value-based world, we’re focusing as an industry on quality over cost. And in fact, we’re seeing more opportunity than ever before. People are looking for ways to do things better and with greater scalability. So having things have a commercial market is icing on the cake.

What should CIOs and CMIOs be on the lookout for in the next few years?

What we’ve been conversing about. They need a channel to develop, scale, and commercialize new solutions. And without an appropriate channel, you can certainly make a difference within your own organization, but the rest of the world isn’t necessarily a Cleveland Clinic or a Geisinger. So it’s the responsibility of partners like ours, North Shore Long Island-Jewish and others, to bring these solutions to market. In our summit, for example, we’re focused this year on solutions to support care management for obesity and diabetes. And we’re looking at everything from social media solutions to web-based technologies to using mobile devices, etc.

Do you have anything to add?

I would like to tell you about something exciting we’re doing for the first time at our Summit. On Monday, the day we open, in the morning, we’re going to have a New Ventures Healthcare Challenge, and we’re inviting eight to 10 startup companies to pitch their concepts and business plans to a group of thought leaders, both industry leaders and venture capitalists. And we’re going to vote on the best presentation and concept, and they’ll actually win a three-year membership in an incubator program called Startup Health. It’s very cool. I think that’s really going to stimulate some exciting technologies, focused especially on obesity and diabetes, an area that certainly deserves attention.