A Structured Pathway Toward Disruption: A Novel HealthTec Innovation Design Curriculum With Entrepreneurship in Mind

Abstract

The typical curriculum of training and educating future clinicians, biomedical engineers, health IT, and artificial intelligence experts lacks needed twenty first-century skills like problem-solving, stakeholder empathy, curiosity stimulation, entrepreneurship, and health economics, which are essential generators and are pre-requirements for creating intentional disruptive innovations. Moreover, the translation from research to a valuable and affordable product/process innovation is not formalized by the current teachings that focus on short-term rather than long-term developments, leading to inaccurate and incremental forecasting on the future of healthcare and longevity. The Stanford Biodesign approach of unmet clinical need detection would be an excellent starting methodology for health-related innovation work, although unfortunately not widely taught yet. We have developed a novel lecture titled HealthTec Innovation Design (HTID) offered in an interdisciplinary setup to medical students and biomedical engineers. It teaches a future-oriented view and the application and effects of exponential trends. We implemented a novel approach using the Purpose Launchpad meta-methodology combined with other innovation generation tools to define, experiment, and validate existing project ideas. As part of the process of defining the novel curriculum, we used experimentation methods, like a global science fiction event to create a comic book with Future Health stories and an Innovation Think Tank Certification Program of a large medical technology company that is focused on identifying future health opportunities. We conducted before and after surveys and concluded that the proposed initiatives were impactful in developing an innovative design thinking approach. Participants' awareness and enthusiasm were raised, including their willingness to implement taught skills, values, and methods in their working projects. We conclude that a new curriculum based on HTID is essential and needed to move the needle of healthcare activities from treating sickness to maintaining health.

Engaging Through Awareness: Purpose-Driven Framework Development to Evaluate and Develop Future Business Strategies With Exponential Technologies Toward Healthcare Democratization

“…Besides data privacy, big data management, ethics, and novel regulatory approvals were identified as the main implications to be faced when implementing digitization and advanced technologies in healthcare. Thus, when approaching digital transformation in healthcare delivery the need for revised education and training programs is necessary when preparing future professionals for innovation generation ( 14 ). Indeed, participants agreed that this factor should be considered, as well as, the promotion of activities, classes, and labs to conduct innovative initiatives.…”

“…However, even though healthcare is not yet ready to shift toward a digitalized and decentralized system, the Covid-19 pandemic represented a considerable event while forcing the urgency of remote E-health services and monitoring. Whether it is clear that digitalization and advanced technologies in healthcare would bring opportunities and a novel set of values ( 17 ), the importance of revising education and training programs cannot be neglected to allow this transformation ( 14 ). Moreover, learning how to implement these advances to enhance patient care and experience ( 18 ) is the key when thinking of which aspect and innovative strategy should healthcare invest its effort in.…”

“…However, when speculating on the future of healthcare ( 13 ) several trends can be predicted such as the increasing number of patients (i.e., the ultimate consumers), disruptive technologies, a different business model to deliver healthcare, innovation driven by competition, increase of costs, uninsured individuals, decreased payment for providers, and lastly, the continuous need of updating and revising healthcare procedures and regulations ( 12 ). Hence, a multidisciplinary approach would be recommended to deliver more efficient and effective healthcare services ( 14 , 15 ).…”

“…Successively, some of these projects are subsequently further developed into a medical technology and disease pathway strategy. At the same time, these projects would also support further joint research while gaining insight toward outstanding and creative patient-centric solutions to raise healthcare innovation ( 14 ).…”

The PLH - Purpose Launchpad Health - Meta-Methodology to Explore Problems and Evaluate Solutions for Biomedical Engineering Impact Creation

“…With that we believe that a dedicated innovation metamethodology is needed that explores the actual clinical needs and problems, analysis the environment including future technologies, validates assumptions and hypotheses and subsequently evaluates solutions via rudimentary prototype ideas to find a product/market fit that justifies an impact initiative [2][3][4]. A good recipe is to find a purpose-product fit in a problem EXPLORATION phase and validate some of the initial hypothesis with many customer and problem oriented experiments.…”