Celebrating the contribution of ESCP Europe's Health Management Innovation Research Centre (HMI) to a special supplement to the British Journal of Healthcare Management, the Business School hosted a conference in June on 'Shaping the Future of Healthcare in Europe: A Management Innovation Approach'.
An international group of healthcare experts came together to talk about the application of innovations in management to healthcare to achieve economic gains without compromising on patient outcomes.
Highlights included a video address from Italy's Health Minister, Beatrice Lorenzin, on her push for reforms in the country's healthcare network, with excellent medical practitioners suffering from poor quality public management.ESCP Europe Professor and HMI Scientific Director Dr Olivier Saulpic's research focuses on evaluating the effects of management tools in healthcare. He said this is not easy, depending a lot on the design and context in which they are applied. They are not as standardised as many believe.
Good management: great communications, preparation and planning, and high-visibility support from the top are all necessary to foster a willingness for innovations to succeed in hospitals, concluded healthcare consultant (alumna) Alison Cole. She drew from her experience of remedying the poorly-managed introduction of electronic prescriptions to an NHS trust, a project with high stakes: 10% of hand-written prescriptions lead to costly errors for patient health subsequent claims.
NHS insider, Consultant Gastroenterologist Dr Angela Wong, appreciated the event as her first cross-functional conference outside the clinical field. In her roles as Clinical Director Cancer Improvement and Transforming Services Together Clinical Lead at Barts Hospital, she was involved in reducing the steps in 'patient pathways' from entry to a clinic to treatment. This has helped cope with the extra 1,000 patients a year passing through her clinics and led to earlier diagnosis of cancers.
Improved patient outcomes, as well as massive cost savings were also the results Dr Reda Guiha, Regional President Vaccines Division EU at Pfizer, described in the context of vaccination programmes: some $63bn are saved a year just from vaccinating babies. Innovation in vaccines is moving fast, with a new 13-in-one vial protecting against 13 different strains of pneumonia, and including 500 steps in its complex manufacturing process. Rolling out vaccines like this to the elderly will reduce the 'silver tsunami' of costs associated with hospitalisation of increasing elderly western populations – but it will also require partnerships between patients, pharmacies and doctors to increase access to vaccines for the elderly to benefit.
ESCP Europe Professor and HMI Scientific Director Dr Davide Sola talked about the problem of patients with chronic illnesses losing the motivation to follow prescribed treatments and how new apps are helping. He described apps like the Pain Squad game, targeted at children undergoing treatment. He said that to succeed, games need to provide patients with goals, feedback, rewards, rankings, peer pressure and storytelling to be effective.
A lively Q&A followed with ESCP Europe's consumer psychologist Dr Ben Voyer joining the panel, moderated by Dr Jerome Couturier. The audience came from as far afield as a hospital in Hamburg, and included students, alumni, healthcare practitioners, business professionals and entrepreneurs.
ESCP Europe's Health Management Innovation Research Centre operates between the School's campuses in London and Paris. They are planning to host more conferences in London in the near future. Find out more