From 1983 to1993, John Sculley served as CEO of Apple, working with Steve Jobs to revitalize the company's marketing and sales of the Apple II computer. Mr. Sculley now brings that same vision to the health IT world, serving as a board member, investor and founder of numerous healthcare and technology companies.
Mr. Sculley shared some of his insights on key drivers of healthcare innovation with Louisville Business First ahead of a talk he gave at the World Affairs Council of Kentucky and Southern Indiana's "World @ Home" monthly speaker series.
Here are five of Mr. Sculley's thoughts on healthcare innovation.
1. On healthcare innovation's biggest opportunity. "The biggest opportunity for disruptive healthcare innovation is to focus on the most seriously ill chronic care patients, who are 5 percent of the population and 50 percent of the U.S. healthcare spend."
2. On key trends in health technology. "Video virtual visits are growing rapidly, and both patients and doctors appreciate the ease of use and how it eliminates long waits for in-office appointments and rapid reply to critical care questions and interpretation of sophisticated imaging tests like MRI, ultrasound, X-rays, echocardiograms and other procedures."
3. On missed opportunities. "Healthcare missed the PC revolution, it missed the web. It can not afford to miss the cloud and big data analytics and mobile video services."
4. On what's driving innovation today. "Two things are driving the innovation now.
"One: all the needed technologies for the above innovations are reliable and cost-effective.
"Two: I have been in the healthcare domain for 10 years, helping entrepreneurs build their companies. I have many decades of domain experience in high tech and consumer services. The timing is perfect now to adapt the best latest technologies to solve some of the largest business problems of our era."
5. On characteristics of the most innovative companies. "Most of the most innovative healthcare companies are relatively new and still private. The only reason for a new company to exist is because it believes there is a better way to do something important. It's important that new companies align risk-taking with their innovation purpose and mission….
"New companies have the advantage of no past baggage to protect. Everyone must be committed to innovation."
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