Mark Coticchia was named corporate vice president of innovation for Baptist Health in September, responsible for working with Founder and Medical Director of Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute Barry Katzen, MD, to develop the Innovation Institute Miami.
The pair will also identify venture-ready opportunities in the future. Here, Mr. Coticchia describes how Baptist Health built and maintains a culture of innovation and how the system will evolve in the future.
Question: How do you approach building and maintaining a culture of innovation at your hospital or health system?
Mark Coticchia: There are three cornerstones on which we will continue to build our innovation culture at Baptist Health.
First is by recognizing, promoting and celebrating innovation. In doing so, we remove the stigma that 'innovation is not for me' and help employees recognize that innovation is a tool to help them better care for patients.
The second is by providing incentives and resources for our innovators to step out of their comfort zones and work on challenging needs. The best innovation cultures reward contributors at both personal and professional levels by incorporating things like employee challenges, innovation fellowships and opportunities to participate in offsite and even global collaborations.
Finally, top-down commitment is required for innovation to permeate the organization. In the most innovative cultures, the C-suite not only endorses innovation, but personally participates in and experiences the impact it brings.
In 2017, under the leadership of Dr. Barry Katzen, founder and chief medical executive of Miami Cardiac & Vascular Institute, Baptist Health launched Innovation Institute Miami as a place where physicians and staff could bring their ideas as part of an effort to develop a culture of innovation in South Florida that will positively impact human health.
We will build upon Dr. Katzen's efforts in the years ahead.
Q: Where do you see your organization investing the most time and resources for innovation in the future?
MC: We are laying the foundation for new technologies including equipping our facilities with 5G, creating an integrated digital framework that is consumer friendly, curating data marts to support evidenced-based care, and enhancing our EHR to add functionality.
We will invest in technologies that facilitate the migration of care from inpatient to outpatient, to mobile devices and care at home.
And, of course, it all starts with our people, by providing the best tools, development opportunities and environment to enable each person to function at the top of their abilities.
Q: How does the trend in consumerism in healthcare affect the way you approach healthcare delivery innovation?
MC: Undoubtedly, medical consumerism and patient choice is affecting the way every care provider, hospital and system must approach its patient base. Consumer expectations are being shaped by advances in other industries. Consumers want quality and efficiency. Care when they want it, via the channel they prefer. That may be in the office of a primary care physician, an urgent care center or emergency department, or via a virtual visit on a mobile device from home like our Baptist Health Care On Demand app.
As in other industries, the power is shifting from institutions to consumers. That's good for everyone. But, like all change, there will be pain points along the way. To better serve our current and future patients, Baptist Health has embarked on an initiative to embrace digital solutions to healthcare.
As most of us have seen in our daily lives, digital connectivity imparts convenience and access to products or services that were unimaginable a decade ago. Excitingly, Baptist Health is committed to bringing the same convenience and access to our community by exploring, adopting and, when needed, developing custom digital solutions across the system.
Importantly, we recognize that our care givers also need digital tools to augment their ability to better serve patients. So, concurrent to our patient-facing digital solutions, we are developing digital systems that reduce the time that care givers spend on administration and facilitate greater engagement with patients.
Join us for the Becker's Hospital Review 3rd Annual Health IT + Clinical Leadership + Pharmacy Conference, May 19-21, 2020 in Chicago. Topics include artificial intelligence, telehealth, data analytics, clinician burnout, population health, pharmaceutical care and more. Learn more and register here. For more information about exhibitor and sponsorship opportunities, contact Maggie Dunne at events@beckershealthcare.com.