"You See Things and You Say 'Why?' But I Dream Things That Never Were; And I Say, 'Why Not?" George Bernard Shaw, Back to Methuselah (1921)
Innovation is a fascinating subject and innovators are fun to read about. They are even more fun to be around. I am fortunate to be surrounded by innovators in their respective areas of interest...medicine, technology, law, sales, design and more. As iMedExchange prepares to launch waves of innovation into a market starving for inspiration and solutions, I thought I'd share thoughts about innovation and innovators I have stumbled across in the course of my reading.
First, let me note there is a distinction between invention and innovation. There are terrific works on this comparison including a brief article by William Buxton from 2005. Buxton notes in his opening statement that:
"Innovation is far more about prospecting, mining, refining and adding value than it is about pure invention."
Buxton goes on to quote William Gibson "The future is already here. It is just not uniformly distributed."
More than ever before, the US health care industry is undergoing a great deal of comparison to the health care systems on others countries. What is all too often diminished in the dialog is the massive divide between the inventive and innovative genius in the United States compared to the rest of the world. There is little denying the gap and dare few would even try to debate the subject. The real question lies in why the US has been such a dominant innovation factory for over 400 years. We lack the physical resources of many countries. We lack the manpower of others. And yet, we lead.
The US health care system is under strain...there is little argument to this fact. As Americans we demand much from our system. Moreover, the baby boomer generation and longer mortality rates are adding stress, pushing the existing system beyond its limits. Any student of history knows that out of great turmoil and need, innovation matched with persistence must and does prevail. I believe as objectively as is possible, that the iMedExchange team and our extraordinary community of physicians will answer the call. History will tell the story and in short order the Prologue will come to a close as Chapter One is started.
In the meantime, through the remainder of the year, I will periodically share select mini bios on some of America's great innovators. Many of them are household names and all of them are inspiration for this generation of American innovators.
