Innovation in Health Care Has to Be a Team Sport

In the past, there was always a clear divide between academic research and commercial activities, with academics notoriously leery of engaging in business ventures. “If you were an academic who founded a company, it was like, ‘What are you doing getting your hands dirty in that?’” says Dr. Kristin-Anne Rutter, executive director at Cambridge University Health Partners (CUHP). A recent cultural shift, however, has turned that attitude on its head. “These days, it’s more, ‘If you haven't got a company—if you're not doing something with your research—what on earth are you doing?’”

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And thank goodness for it. Collaboration across academia, health care systems and industry is imperative to drive medical innovation, says Rutter, who oversees CUHP’s mission to improve patient care by bringing together the UK’s National Health Service, industry and academia. “The health care system has to realize that they need to be more open to working with industry and academia,” she says, adding that all parties must then work together to develop new commercial models and contracting mechanisms to enable faster adoption of innovations.

The health care system has to realize that they need to be more open to working with industry and academia.

At the forefront of collaborative transformation are universities, which Rutter says are evolving from traditional “knowledge engines to hubs of innovation.” It's a change driven by a growing recognition that research should have real-world impact, with scientists seeking to adapt their work to practical applications. Universities are supporting this shift by providing infrastructure to translate research to industry, including building incubator facilities and facilitating partnerships.

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Emphasizing that “health is no longer solely about the health care system,” Rutter warns that “we will not have a sustainable health care system unless we innovate.” The biggest determinant of health is economic well-being, she notes. And understanding that a population’s health extends beyond hospital walls is the first step in driving a holistic strategy for care that encompasses economic factors, including wages, housing, diet and even city design.

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At the center of any new approach Rutter sees three major shifts shaping the future:

The first focuses on prevention and early detection, which holds immense potential for improving a population’s health and reducing health care costs. Rutter envisions a future where diseases can be predicted and either averted or mitigated via comprehensive genomic screening. “You can probably predict at age 16 most of the diseases people are likely to get and put them on appropriate medications or suggest lifestyle interventions,” she says.

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Personalization of care is the second shift and entails moving away from one-size-fits-all treatments to tailored approaches based on an individual's genetic makeup and lifestyle. From personalized cancer vaccines to 3D-printed hip replacements, personalization promises better outcomes and more efficient use of resources. Rutter notes the potential of personalized medicine also extends to prevention, with the possibility of customized screening schedules and targeted lifestyle interventions based on an individual's genetic profile. (All of which, she adds, raise questions of health care delivery systems, equity and affordability.)

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The third shift involves ramping up automation and artificial intelligence—everything from administrative tasks and clinical decision-making to AI-powered diagnostic tools and robotic surgical assistants. As Rutter points out, however, “health care data is not in a particularly good state today” and significant challenges remain in terms of data quality and standardization. “A lot of the data you need is not currently collected in the formats required,” she says, advocating for a future in which health care organizations view data departments as essential as surgical teams.

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She also calls for ensuring data accessibility, both across and beyond individual organizations. “Researchers don’t just need access to data they've generated in their own labs. They need access to patient databases in Denmark or Singapore as well.”

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The payoff for embracing a holistic strategy? Rutter points to the University of Cambridge Heart and Lung Research Institute, which brings experts in respiratory and cardiovascular diseases together under one roof. “It really does help having the epidemiologists who are doing the data research bump into the lab scientists and the clinicians,” she says. “Everyone has a sense of a shared vision.”

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