Physician Meets Real-world Healthcare: My Perspectives from the 2019 Harvard Business School Healthcare Conference

Sarah J. Moum, M.D.

Fellow in Neuroradiology at MGH

PGY-6

March 26, 2019

As physicians, what is our vision for the future of healthcare? Our consensus likely includes more efficient, effective, and equitable healthcare for all. Is this different from the vision of non-physician administrators, health insurance leaders, and other businesspersons? At its core, no; but in its implementation, definitely.

The future of healthcare was the central topic of conversation at the 2019 Harvard Business School Healthcare Conference, which I attended in February at the Harvard Business School in Boston, Massachusetts. The conference was an excellent opportunity for me and other attendees to witness leaders from United Healthcare and other giants within the business of medicine lay out their plans for increasing the accessibility, efficiency, and personalization of healthcare.

What I found particularly interesting, and somewhat disconcerting, was that many of these plans did not include physicians in a central or decision-making role. Undoubtedly, delivering healthcare efficiently in the setting of limited resources requires adopting new approaches from other areas of industry; the future practice of medicine will differ significantly from how it is currently practiced and how it was practiced in preceding generations. However, allowing advancing technologies to reduce or remove the doctor’s role in the interest of efficiency may have negative consequences for both patients and the system as a whole. Training and tradition have afforded physicians with a special fund of knowledge and a unique perspective of both the science and the humanistic side of disease and treatment. Physicians can add value to evolving healthcare business models.

Attending this conference reminded me that while the practice of medicine is an art and a science, it is also a business. As a physician, I must work to help integrate the unique physician perspective into the evolving business model of healthcare. In turn, physicians, like myself, must embrace new technologies in daily clinical practice. Moreover, it is critical for our profession that both seasoned and young physicians alike are involved in conferences, such as this one, where the ideas about the future of healthcare business are discussed and developed. Reflecting on my experiences at the 2019 Harvard Business School Healthcare Conference, I am reminded of the words of an active innovator in value-based radiology, Samir Patel, MD: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”