ABCtech #66 18May16 Health City

ABCtech #66 18May16 Health City

Health is in the news, whether it be the spiralling cost of serving an ageing population, dietary dilemmas, or the endless promises of emerging technologies: cell and gene therapies, metabolomics, the power of analytics in diagnosis and treatment. And now “Edmonton”, that is setting it’s sites on beiing recognized as “Health City”. The announcement is the subject of this issue’s editorial and our question to you – is Edmonton’s innovation ecosystem ready, that is, does it support SMEs with health innovations, e.g. procurement, access to capital, tech transfer.   Your response is invited HERE

Also in this issue are two surveys: Alberta – Improving Access to Capital HEREand Technology & The Future of Professions HERE. – Editor

Edmonton: Canada’s Health City? by Derrrick Rancourt, University of Calgary and Peter Fenwick, Fenwick & Associates

As part of his recent state of the city address Edmonton Mayor Don Iveson released a new strategic plan suggesting that Edmonton can become Canada’s Health City HERE. In the document, Iverson points out four advantages, which give this bold move considerable credibility.

• Edmonton has an intellectual advantage, with several postsecondary institutions and specialized healthcare centres that can help drive health innovation.
• Edmonton boasts some of Canada’s most innovative economic development organizations.
• Alberta is a strong supporter of innovation through the Alberta Innovates programs and its support of research.
• Alberta’s unified health system “headquartered in Edmonton” offers a single decision point responsible for the care of four million Albertans.

In his new book – The Third Wave: An Entrepreneur’s Vision of the Future, Tech Guru and AOL Founder Steve Case predict that the future of high tech entrepreneurship will involve the “rise of the rest”. Although the tech sector has emerged in only a few hubs such as Silicon Valley, the emerging “internet of things” will see the rise of a number of other globally influential jurisdictions. Edmonton is wise to position itself in this new third wave. Moreover, Mr. Case also suggests that the third wave will see increased interactions between entrepreneurs and regulators. While the current second wave of tech is largely focused on application development – with the likes of Uber and the so called “sharing economy” – we are beginning to see how entrepreneurs are banging heads with regulators. As the internet of things has so much more potential tointerfere with privacy, it is clear that government will need to become much more involved with technology development in the future. But will it be a combative or cooperative relationship. Is this about public verses private interests or are social lines that clear anymore with the “rise of the rest”?

Mayor Iverson’s approach is more than aspirational. The idea that two layers of government are better than one to cooperate and create local health, social and commercial value is brilliant. It means that testing, procuring then scaling adoption of health innovations might actually be expedited. This is Community building, and part of Alberta’s pioneering spirit. It should be encouraged throughout the Province and should be embraced as more municipal economic development groups include health commercialization in their strategy and plans. In fact, a single health authority with the vision of  “Healthy Albertans. Health Communities. Together” should be even more apt to have its leadership act in alignment. Mayor Iveson offers a helpful nudge.

Having a single decision point for the adoption of new health technologies in Alberta offers Edmonton’s emerging health tech companies a unique test bed for the rolling out of new technologies. This single decision point has existed for over 8 years. In theory, once a technology or service is tested amongst even a portion of Alberta’s 650 health facilities, including 106 acute care hospitals, the likelihood of adoption from other jurisdictions including the US should be great. In practice, it may take the emerging third wave of health tech, via municipalities like Edmonton showing the real potential is for Alberta to become the envy of Silicon Valley. This will happen by the Province and our Provincial health system partnering as equals with Communities. Only by succeeding at home first will leveraging these four things create the visionary advantage proposed by the Mayor.

From a health system perspective it is exciting to note that improvement guru Dr. Don Berwick is also inspiring us to think in threes. His recent thesis on Era 3 for Medicine and in Health Care is also community centric, citing 9 steps that are needed to move beyond complex incentives and excessive (non value creating) measurement. Most noteworthy is step 8, ‘listen, really listen’. Cooperative communities that listen must acknowledge that participating in a third wave will secure more than economic development, its turning our Alberta health system into an asset.