Disruptive technologies that can improve healthcare delivery

Disruptive technology was first described by Professor Dr Clayton Christensen in his book "The Innovator's Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail"

He analysed why so many of the large and established companies failed when new innovative technology emerged and found that both manufacturers and costumers had business models that depended on sustainable technological development, and was not able to change as new disruptive technology entered the marked. This technology was usually simpler, more reliable and cheaper. Disruptive innovations also had lower performance and were first sold in emerging or insignificant markets before it emerged from below as performance increased.

The Healthcare industry struggle with increasing cost, shortage of healthcare workers and expectations that can't always be met. The existing solution is to do less, run faster or increase reimbursement. We improve what we know how to do with sustaining innovations and in the end we "overshoot" the need for less demanding patients.

Telemedicine is a disruptive technology that might under perform compared to face-to-face consultations but meets the need for large groups of patients that can use remote consultations for their diagnostics and follow-up.

It is important for strategic healthcare managers to recognize disruptive technology that simplifies complex problems. In the end of the presentation I will suggest interesting areas to watch closely for emerging disruptive technology.