My observations and experience as senior Technologist working in health for over a decade leading tech change, leads to the following considered opinion.
Clinicians tend to be highly educated in a particular field, and due to their lack of IT understanding tend to diminish IT to being a utility, coupled with the psychology whereby educated people don’t like being told they don’t know something.
The result creates the perception that clinicians should lead technical innovation, and really discount the sophistication, talent, knowledge and skill required to design transformational tech, after all it is a clinical field and therefor a clinician should lead it.
The challenge is creating a space where clinicians are both comfortable and clear they cannot lead without extensive retraining, and that the most valuable place they can be is to get behind tech and provide their highly sophisticated clinical knowledge as subject matter experts. Tech giants who are changing the world don’t hire end users they hire techsperts to change the world for end users. The leadership/management paradigm is the wrong way around.
I feel like many of us clinicians feel morally obligated to stick to the status quo, anyone that tries something new becomes an enemy of our self-gratuitous egos - as if you can't mix business with health even though we all know health is big business. Several hugely successful healthtech innovations that are truly attempting to challenge the classic clinical business model are spearheaded and run by engineers, financial people, BDMs - not clinicians! Ask a clinician to innovate and they'll hire a bunch of doctors and build you a clinic with teleconferencing capability T_T
Thanks for sharing Aaya! Such great insight and it's such an interesting internal conflict. Not sure how you feel, but for me when I left medicine, it was like I had been programmed (and know many others felt this way too) that "big business" and commercialisation was bad. And really grappled with saw myself as unable to do good if you were making lots of money. Classic black and white thinking.
It took a lot of time to come to terms with the fact that combining profit and purpose works best, as everyone has to make money, and you're better working with the system to create scalable change - not against it.
That's in - many of our Aus success stories are not from traditional clinicians. There's needs to be a clinical element factored in - but the other ways of thinking are invaluable and innovation really lies in the intersection/mix of ideas. You can't solve a problem using the same kind of thinking that created them (cheers Mr Einstein)
Yes, I have had the exact same experience with the ideology in healthcare and it really is a battle to win that internal conflict, not only in the initial but when seeking to discuss the idea with other clinicians that are stuck in their mindsets.
Not sure if it's a geographical or an occupational culture...maybe a bit of both?
Like you say there's a risk aversion locally with investment, and I wonder if there's also a culture of risk aversion from healthcare professionals that is holding back the connection and mindset necessary to facilitate large scale and successful commercialization - are we so scared of failing as a society that we don't even want to associate with people that are willing to try and fail?
Sorry to hear you've shared that struggle but always great to find others who have been through it 😂
Interesting point... definitely occupational from what I hear but curious about the geographical nature. Many I've spoken to in Israel, the UK and US seem (generally) far more progressive with more open mindsets.
And we're seen as a little "old school"
Think you're on the money there Aaya... the culture of risk aversion runs deeps and the fear of failure (and tall poppy syndrome) seems to be a very prevalent issue in Australia.
Funny how so much of this comes back to attitude and mindset...
Great article clearly defining the challenges for Health tech innovation which is not only a challenge in Australia but globally. Until there are large returns to health care investors (think Atlassian, Afterpay, CANVA), healthcare innovation is less likely to attract risk investment. There are still too many regulatory and cultural barriers in the health care industry to make such a risky investment attractive to investors. I can't even get my cardiologist or ophthalmologist to send me an email confirming my appointment although they promised to send a letter in the mail which I never received.
My observations and experience as senior Technologist working in health for over a decade leading tech change, leads to the following considered opinion.
Clinicians tend to be highly educated in a particular field, and due to their lack of IT understanding tend to diminish IT to being a utility, coupled with the psychology whereby educated people don’t like being told they don’t know something.
The result creates the perception that clinicians should lead technical innovation, and really discount the sophistication, talent, knowledge and skill required to design transformational tech, after all it is a clinical field and therefor a clinician should lead it.
The challenge is creating a space where clinicians are both comfortable and clear they cannot lead without extensive retraining, and that the most valuable place they can be is to get behind tech and provide their highly sophisticated clinical knowledge as subject matter experts. Tech giants who are changing the world don’t hire end users they hire techsperts to change the world for end users. The leadership/management paradigm is the wrong way around.
I feel like many of us clinicians feel morally obligated to stick to the status quo, anyone that tries something new becomes an enemy of our self-gratuitous egos - as if you can't mix business with health even though we all know health is big business. Several hugely successful healthtech innovations that are truly attempting to challenge the classic clinical business model are spearheaded and run by engineers, financial people, BDMs - not clinicians! Ask a clinician to innovate and they'll hire a bunch of doctors and build you a clinic with teleconferencing capability T_T
Thanks for sharing Aaya! Such great insight and it's such an interesting internal conflict. Not sure how you feel, but for me when I left medicine, it was like I had been programmed (and know many others felt this way too) that "big business" and commercialisation was bad. And really grappled with saw myself as unable to do good if you were making lots of money. Classic black and white thinking.
It took a lot of time to come to terms with the fact that combining profit and purpose works best, as everyone has to make money, and you're better working with the system to create scalable change - not against it.
That's in - many of our Aus success stories are not from traditional clinicians. There's needs to be a clinical element factored in - but the other ways of thinking are invaluable and innovation really lies in the intersection/mix of ideas. You can't solve a problem using the same kind of thinking that created them (cheers Mr Einstein)
Yes, I have had the exact same experience with the ideology in healthcare and it really is a battle to win that internal conflict, not only in the initial but when seeking to discuss the idea with other clinicians that are stuck in their mindsets.
Not sure if it's a geographical or an occupational culture...maybe a bit of both?
Like you say there's a risk aversion locally with investment, and I wonder if there's also a culture of risk aversion from healthcare professionals that is holding back the connection and mindset necessary to facilitate large scale and successful commercialization - are we so scared of failing as a society that we don't even want to associate with people that are willing to try and fail?
Sorry to hear you've shared that struggle but always great to find others who have been through it 😂
Interesting point... definitely occupational from what I hear but curious about the geographical nature. Many I've spoken to in Israel, the UK and US seem (generally) far more progressive with more open mindsets.
And we're seen as a little "old school"
Think you're on the money there Aaya... the culture of risk aversion runs deeps and the fear of failure (and tall poppy syndrome) seems to be a very prevalent issue in Australia.
Funny how so much of this comes back to attitude and mindset...
Great insight Aaya
https://anjuanand.substack.com/p/56-days-into-the-new-yeardays-to
Great article clearly defining the challenges for Health tech innovation which is not only a challenge in Australia but globally. Until there are large returns to health care investors (think Atlassian, Afterpay, CANVA), healthcare innovation is less likely to attract risk investment. There are still too many regulatory and cultural barriers in the health care industry to make such a risky investment attractive to investors. I can't even get my cardiologist or ophthalmologist to send me an email confirming my appointment although they promised to send a letter in the mail which I never received.