Transcription

• Speaker #0

  My name is Emma. I'm a biomedical engineer, and through each episode, I take you diving into the realities of healthcare innovation. Through candid conversations with those shaping innovation, we go beyond the hype to talk about the operational and systemic barriers that stand in the way of adoption. Most importantly, we explore ways to overcome them. So whether you are developing new solutions, delivering care, shaping policies, or just curious about healthcare innovation, this podcast is for you. So welcome to SignUps.

• Speaker #1

  Tonight, I return to speak to all of you about an issue that is central to that few, and that is the issue of healthcare.

• Speaker #2

  We are living a technological and scientific revolution as we have never known before. I don't know the science like you know, but I know bureaucracies, and I know how to knock them down.

• Speaker #3

  As a clinician, how do you take this idea that you've got in your head and turn it into reality?

• Speaker #4

  Why are we innovating in the 21st century? What are we trying to accomplish today?

• Speaker #5

  At the end of the day, the right technology is the technology that somebody uses.

• Speaker #0

  Thank you for tuning in to Synapse and welcome to this new adventure. Before we get out there and start the conversation with our guests, I wanted to hold on to the mic just for a few minutes to welcome you properly and explain the why and the missions behind Synapse. To start it off, I want to go back to the core assumption, the shared goal that guides or should guide every person and every organization involved in healthcare. And that is... to improve the health and quality of life of populations. I'll spare you the WHO's definition of health that I think we've heard over and over again, but what I want to do here to kick off this intro is to give you a glimpse of how complex the healthcare ecosystem is. The first indicator of this complexity is the sheer number of stakeholders involved in healthcare. Of course, we think of clinicians and caregivers, We also think of researchers, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, all developing diagnostics and therapies that led to major breakthroughs. But if we want a complete picture of healthcare, we also need to include the players who don't always make the headlines. And here I'm thinking of regulators, payers, funding bodies, hospital leadership, investors, and of course public and political decision makers. It becomes quite obvious that healthcare spreads way beyond care delivery, which, although central, is only one component of a complex ecosystem. Ultimately, what generates complexity is not so much the number of stakeholders as it is their diversity. They face different challenges, live in different realities and have different missions. What results from this are healthcare systems built on an equilibrium of tensions by the way, not always fully understood all consciously acknowledge and made of a web of interconnected ecosystems. And on top of that, every country has its own healthcare system. They sometimes look similar but they never function exactly the same way. Then, the healthcare ecosystem's complexity is also, and perhaps above all, due to its human nature. It confronts us in our bodies, in our identity, it refers to the sacred through a science that we wish would be more precise than it actually is, and whose knowledge is held by only part of the population while the rest must trust. And we can see it: this long-held balance is getting harder and harder to maintain in today's societies. Beliefs are being shaken, trust is wearing thin, and the way our healthcare ecosystems work is increasingly being questioned. Finally, This complexity also lies in what a healthcare system says about our society. It sends a strong signal about our society's values, about how a nation views human dignity, equity and solidarity. It answers to the question: is a country built around individual responsibility? Or does it favour a collective approach treating universal access to care as a fundamental right? That choice shapes not only how services are organised but the very identity of the society itself. Well, we've outlined the main reasons why healthcare ecosystems are so complex and there's plenty more that we'll get to explore throughout the episodes. But now, to see where I'm going with innovation, we need to understand that healthcare innovation is a world of its own. It's made up of researchers, entrepreneurs, industry leaders, investors, startup accelerators. It's a dynamic world, it's a promising world and it's an enthusiastic world. But it's also a world that often evolves far from the forces shaping healthcare systems and far from the realities of care. And here we are facing our core topic, the adoption of healthcare innovation. Because at the end of the day, this is where it all unfolds. all unfolds. Each innovation to be adopted, its adoption being the ultimate measure of its positive impact on health, well, it must be able to navigate this complexity. It needs to understand, to overcome them, the barriers that will rise up throughout its entire life cycle, from the ideation phase all the way to when it reaches the end users. So if we want to sum it up and connect it back to our starting point... being to improve the health and quality of life of populations, then we have to accept one thing: that there is only one true measure of an innovation's success, being its real-life adoption. And to get there, a deep understanding of a healthcare system's complexity and of the realities of care is essential. When we fail to recognize these barriers to adoption, well, we get innovations that do not address real needs, that will not achieve a viable business model, that will face societal and regulatory constraints, or that will simply try to make it in markets that are not mature enough to adopt them. However, we know that we do not live in a world of unlimited resources, and we know major challenges are ahead of us. Healthcare systems are facing budget constraints, workforce shortages, aging populations, and an increasing prevalence of chronic diseases. We can no longer afford to innovate for the sake of innovation. We must innovate to address concrete needs while optimizing the human, financial and technological resources available to us. Earlier we talked about the ways that you can show up for healthcare. Well, for Synapse and for me this is it: supporting the adoption of healthcare innovation. And to fulfill that mission I'm bringing healthcare stakeholders to Synapse to give innovators an understanding of the barriers to adoption and the tools to break through them, to figure out how healthcare systems can actually adopt innovation, and to advocate for healthcare professionals and patients to be actively involved in the development of innovation. We all have a role to play in supporting the adoption of innovation whether as patients, clinicians, innovators or decision makers, and the first step is simply to listen and understand. I wish you a great time listening to Cyanavs and you know where to find me.