The National Dialogue for Healthcare Innovation

This summer, the Council for American Medical Innovation, a group headed by former Democratic Congressman Dick Gephardt, issued a report that raised concerns.  The report said that, while the United States remains the global leader in biomedical development, there was no guarantee that would continue to be the case in the future.

One expert was quoted in the report as saying, “General climate for innovation is a problem.  As a nation, we have gone from seeing medical innovation as a good thing to being fearful of it and very anti-science.  Medical innovation is largely absent from our national discussions on healthcare reform, yet without dramatic improvements from medical innovation for neurodegenerative diseases and chronic diseases the cost of healthcare will not improve.”

That’s why the Healthcare Leadership Council has formed the National Dialogue for Healthcare Innovation (NDHI), co-chaired by Lahey Clinic CEO Dr. David Barrett and Medtronic Chairman and CEO Bill Hawkins.  Through NDHI, we want to bring together everyone who has a stake in the future of medical innovation in the United States  — patients, physicians, consumers, academia, government and the healthcare industry  — to have transparent, candid discussions on the key issues affecting innovation.  It is our hope that this kind of initiative can generate the kind of consensus building that supports sound policymaking.

There’s no question that innovation is the key to achieving higher-quality, more affordable healthcare.  When 75 cents of every healthcare dollar is devoted to the treatment of chronic disease, it’s apparent that there is a direct connection between reducing healthcare costs and finding new treatments, technologies and medicines to keep people well.

Our first NDHI event is going to be a Summit on Physician-Industry Collaboration, taking place October 4 at the Newseum in Washington, DC.    Future summits will explore a wide range of innovation-focused issues.

The press release announcing the creation of NDHI is here.