,Lecture 1: What is innovation? And what is e-health and m-health?
Changes in the healthcare system:
● Rising costs (2022, the total healthcare costs in NL ≈ 51.5 billion euros)
● Demographic changes (people aged 80 or over in the EU is expected to more
than double by 2050)
● Changing healthcare systems (Home hospitals, remote care)
● Technological opportunities (focus on ICT)
● Privatisation and competition (lucrative industry due to huge profits)
● COVID (medical / prevention / modelling / sociology)
Changing demographics
We are getting older, driving up the demand for healthcare, strain on healthcare financing.
The middle class is growing, accelerated urbanization, access to middle-class comforts /
lifestyle.
Demographic shifts and societal changes:
Intensify pressures on health systems (money, care givers)
Demand new directions in the delivery of healthcare
No one wants to pay too much when healthy, but ..
Everyone wants the best possible care when ill
Pricing of treatments is a complex multi-actor process
No political party dares to reduce healthcare > budget
Changing healthcare systems
In response to the rising costs and the demographic challenges, healthcare (systems) are
changing.
Hospital to home: Clients stay at home longer and/or leave the hospital earlier.
More focus on informal care: Informal and formal caregivers are expected to work together in
order to organize care efficiently.
More focus on self-reliance of the client (Cure > Cope): Seniorization means shift from repair
to cope with disease.
What is an innovation?
An innovation is the implementation of a new or significantly improved product (good or
service), or process, a new marketing method, or a new organisational method in business
practices, workplace organisation or external relations (OECD 2005).
Novelty + implementation
Innovation is an outcome, innovation is a process, and innovation is a mindset
Innovation in healthcare: “those changes that help healthcare practitioners focus
on the patient and other stakeholder by helping them to work smarter, faster, better and/or
more cost effectively”.
What’s new?
● New uses: Original products positioned in new markets without any significant
change
● New category entries: Products that are new to the company, but not new to the
consumer.
, ● New markets: Current offerings taken to new markets with minimal changes to the
product
● New-to-the-world products: Technological innovations that create a completely new
market that previously did not exist. These innovations would be characterized as
radical.
Recombinant innovation
Technical innovation and Service innovation
● Technological innovation refers to a product that is new or significantly changed
with respect to its characteristics or intended use
● Service innovation embodies new elements introduced into an organisation which
do not principally involve supplying a good and it consists of mainly intangible
combinations of processes, skills and materials.
● Service innovations are generally
● Intangible: cannot be apprehended by the physical senses
● Heterogenous: variability in the quality parameters, since they are
transmitted from people to people
● Perishable: used as offered with no possibility of storage, return, sale or even
subsequent use
● Inseparable: concurrently produced and consumed
Incremental vs radical technologies
Information and Communication Technologies
In healthcare, ICT+ is increasingly playing a role in almost all processes: data
monitoring, self-care tools, apps, diagnoses, DNA analysis; algorithms predicting
diseases)
● e-Health: the transfer of health resources and health care by electronic means
● m-Health: medical and public health practice supported by mobile devices, such as
mobile phones, patient monitoring devices, personal digital assistants and other
wireless devices
● Telemedicine: the use of ICT to improve patient outcomes by increasing access to
care and medical information
, ● Big data: high volume, high velocity, and/or high variety information assets that
require new forms of processing to enable: enhanced decision making, better
insights, process optimization and application of AI
Why do we need innovation in health care?
Innovation of healthcare: acceptance
How can we innovate healthcare? Is it perceived as useful? Are there barriers?