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Health Insurer Embraces Technological Innovation

Healthcare innovation faces multiple barriers to success so when it’s achieved it's worth celebrating. That was the case this week when the Los Angeles Times featured an insurer, Oscar, that is providing an unprecedented customer centered app and unique features. The company is currently expanding into Southern California after a successful start up on the East Coast. Whether it’ll become profitable remains to be seen but an influx of investment dollars looks promising. Here’s a breakdown of why this breakthrough is noteworthy.


Health Insurance Innovation

There are three types of healthcare innovation. New business models can be more efficient, create vertical or horizontal integration, and enhance care. Patient focused advances can improve access, ease of use, or address other consumer needs. In addition, technology can improve patient outcomes, cost-efficiency, delivery systems, and impact every part of the healthcare industry. Oscar has created a customer centered insurance interface through technology, easier said than done. To illustrate why innovation in healthcare is so hard Regina Herzlinger shares the three types and potential barriers in her Harvard Business Review article.Healthcare_Innovation_Types_and_Barriers


For more on how to build organizational infrastructure and culture to drive creativity, please see our post, 3 Stages of Healthcare Innovation. In it, Carol Geffner, President of Newpoint Healthcare Advisors, outlines successful development and implementation. Change starts by developing an appetite for creativity, then building a process to nurture it, and finally, building the infrastructure to support the initiative.

If you’re interested in learning which skills you need to manage change in your organization:

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Topics: Innovative LeadershipInformation Technology

Anna Montgomery, MPA

Written by Anna Montgomery, MPA

Anna Montgomery earned her MPA at USC Price and is pursuing her EdD at USC Rossier.