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Disruptor DNA: SmartHealth’s two strand Q&A > Clare Harney Executive Director, Digital Health Transformation HealthTech Ireland

by | Mar 29, 2022

What rule would you break to deliver healthcare value?

The key is value, so it would have to be the traditional rule around how value is defined and measured during decision making in healthcare. Do we define value in terms of money spent and return on investment, improved outcomes, improved experience for patients and whole populations? Or is it a combination of these and other factors? What is value? The truth is that it means different things dependent on perspectives and in order to truly deliver value, we must first include all perspectives as partners in healthcare decision making, from policy level to the point of care. Education and key learning from other health systems is vital to achieving value-based care.

What is the biggest challenge to innovation?

Silo culture has led to development of data silos as technology has been adopted, replicating the same processes for managing health information as paper-based systems. Access to health information when and where it is needed to provide care, as well as full citizen access  to healthcare records in a single location is important to drive citizen centric care, and to providing appropriate care. Digital health applications can be transformative, but more so if we achieve interoperable, standards based management of health data using the individual health identifier, such that our data is protected, yet accessible when appropriate. This would enable faster scaling of innovation, and value, at regional and national level rather than piecemeal adoption at local levels. We must work together at all levels to achieve big changes, but the collaborative work undertaken during the pandemic between industry, policy makers, healthcare providers, leadership and citizens has
shown that together we can achieve so much.

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