US Healthcare System Innovation Challenge

(3 Credits)

The U.S. healthcare system continues to struggle with fragmentation, affordability, access, workforce constraints, uneven quality, and persistent inequities while investment in artificial intelligence, digital health, new care models, and other healthcare innovations continues to accelerate. Yet an innovation can be technologically sophisticated, well financed, and commercially attractive without solving a consequential healthcare problem—or being capable of implementation at scale. This course begins with a different premise: the health policy problem comes first, and innovation must earn its way into the solution. Using the (“Perhaps it is Idiot-Pathic?” (aka “Louis Case”)) as a longitudinal microcosm of the U.S. healthcare system, students will work from a defined set of health policy and health-system problems and examine how the capabilities of one of three health technology and/or a technology incubator-think thank organizational partners might contribute to a solution. Students will determine whether health technology, artificial intelligence (AI), human intervention, a new care-delivery model, policy change, or some combination can meaningfully address the problem. The course operates as an applied healthcare consulting laboratory and expects graduate students to bring their expertise in health policy issues within the US healthcare system to solve the policy gaps identified in the course's case study tied to access, equity, and clinical outcomes. Rather than spending the semester studying health technology companies or developing technology for its own sake, students will integrate health policy, financing, organizational strategy, healthcare management, technology, implementation, and outcomes analysis to answer a more difficult question: Will this solution actually work in the U.S. healthcare system? Faculty-led sessions provide the analytical frameworks students need to conduct the work. Partner organizations contribute their distinctive capabilities and expertise. Structured consulting studios require teams to defend and revise their work throughout the semester. The course culminates in a client-facing strategy paper and presentation recommending a specific intervention and addressing implementation, financing, governance, scalability, and measurable impact.