U.S. healthcare must get better faster. The pandemic exposed a system that’s fragmented, inefficient, reliant on legacy systems, and difficult to change. This is not a small problem. Nationally, healthcare constitutes about 20% of all economic activity. Chugging along like a massive ocean vessel, healthcare can change course only if all hands are on deck and working together.

Collaboration will be essential to healthcare’s timely transformation. Leaders must break down silos (or find emergency exits), reach across boundaries, and form partnerships with other change agents. Organizations that do the same old thing will get the same old result. The wages of recalcitrance are fixed.

In this session, three objectives will guide the panel’s discussion:

• Considering the urgency to leverage IT and transform healthcare, what are the biggest challenges that government leaders must overcome? How do healthcare leaders catalyze collaboration with partners in industry and academia?
• A major challenge of digital transformation is “change management,” which starts with people buying into the proposed transformation. How do agencies drive cultures of adoption while embracing innovation? How will the pandemic’s disruptions to traditional work systems affect implementation of new IT strategies?
• Is there an optimal strategy for identifying areas of the healthcare ecosystem that are ripe for change? What’s the best way to introduce emerging technologies that will quickly and significantly advance healthcare missions?

Speakers