Medical Ice Burgs

i have spent a lot of time recently in the medical arena.  wow; i know of no other industry or value space of such size and mass (inertia) that is undergoing such profound change.

• data turned into wisdom is becoming a critical component of success
• new entrants are entering the field every day -- from app providers to roadside clinics, personal device makers, to healthcare advisers (similar to financial planners in the investment field)
• vertically integrated providers are struggling with cost, overhead, obtaining and keeping quality professionals, and overall complexity

the industry is fragmenting like a large iceberg that that begins to break into multiple smaller pieces. lets look at the pieces individually.

vertically integrated providers (general hospitals) are suffering from more restrictive government payments and subsidies, more knowledgeable patients who no longer say "ok" to all, increased complexity, and a hierarchical cost structure that could very possibly sink them.  on top of that they are churning physicians and other professional staff in record numbers and really don't yet know how to turn data into insight and then into knowledge and wisdom.

complexity alone could easily sink any of these institutions that have less than stellar management. there are four basic races of people in the world with over 30 subgroups -- all with varying DNA, genetics and epigenetics. combine that with two sexes, eight decades of life, and over 20,000 known diseases and the operational complexity of a general hospital becomes unmanageable by definition. general hospitals will have no choice but to rethink their business models.

another piece of the iceberg is the cadre of walk in clinics with Chinese menus of services and the emergency clinics that seem to be popping up everywhere.  both of these are pulling enlightened patients away from general hospitals and general practice physicians.  the marketspace for emergency clinics is following the model of many new start up industries; that of progressing from new, to hot, to overheated, and then to consolidation.  once consolidation occurs, the marketspace will be much more effective and potent as a tool of restructuring the valuespace.

another piece of the iceberg is the personal medical device space and app providers.  these providers who may seem harmless now, will begin to eat away at both prior segments of the medical services space.  they will begin to selectively take much profitable business away from the vertically integrated general hospitals and the walk in and emergency clinics.

the very ground that the medical industry is standing on is shaking (or the iceberg is melting) -- and that is just the beginning of the earthquake to come.

scenario planning, war gaming, effective technology leverage, data analytics, and calculated risk taking and management are the tools of the future of healthcare.

remember everyone has data -- but few have insight and wisdom.

data is useless unless it can be turned into information

information is useless unless it can be turned into knowledge

knowledge is useless unless it can be turned into industry focused insight and wisdom

the walls are down.  there is no more medical industry -- there is just an industry "value space" with few barriers to entry where any company can play and any company can quickly take market share.