Healthcare Innovators in Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business

Fast Company released its list of 100 Most Creative People in Business in June.  As always, it is a captivating piece highlighting some of the world’s best, brightest and most creative business people. I’m constantly inspired by the innovation happening all around us.  This year, I particularly enjoyed recognizing four healthcare visionaries on the list: Jim Yong Kim, MD President of Dartmouth College (#9), Eric Dishman of Intel (#15), Paul Farmer of Partners in Health (#31) and Giovanni Colella of Castlight Health (#57). This year’s visionaries largely focus on working to reduce health care costs while improving quality of care and expanding accessibility through various means.

As President of Dartmouth and a physician, one of Dr. Kim’s personal initiatives is improving global health programs. Dartmouth launched the Dartmouth Center for Health Care Delivery Science, a multi-disciplinary collaboration which studies the best practices of successful health systems in order to tackle the twin challenges of reducing system costs and improving outcomes. According to Fast Company, he believes that this endeavor “could improve health-care quality and help lower costs as much as 30%.”

Eric Dishman (follow Eric on Twitter), Director of Health Innovation for Intel’s Digital Health Group, is working to update the healthcare delivery process, particularly in the aging population. Eric champions home-care; his goal for 2020 is to enable 50% of care to be delivered in the home, improving quality of life, fostering independent living for the elderly and potentially saving trillions of dollars. Care Innovations GE,   collaboration between Intel and GE which launched in January, was inspired by Eric’s vision.

The vision of Partners In Health, co-founded by Paul Farmer in 1987, is to offer care across the globe to those deemed by many as ‘untreatable’, either too poor or too sick. Specifically, Dr. Farmer’s aim is to provide the kind of care you would want any family member to receive. Partners in Health is currently active in 12 countries through the help of 13,000 employees. They have produced an impressive track record including successfully treating drug-resistant TB in Peru.

Castlight Health’s Founder and CEO Giovanni Colella created an online portal to allow users to comparison-shop for healthcare providers and procedures, bringing a new level of price transparency to the industry. The company believes that by allowing consumers to make smarter decisions, they can impact the cost and quality of care.

There are thousands of innovators in healthcare, working hard every day to broaden access to care, lower ballooning healthcare costs and most importantly improve patient care outcomes. I’m pleased we could take a moment to honor some of best and brightest. We welcome you to share your favorite examples of innovations in healthcare in the comment section of this blog, on Facebook, on Twitter or on LinkedIn.

Sincerely,
Brad Waugh
Chief Executive Officer