Britta Fünfstück
The Management of Innovation and Efficiency
Globally, many healthcare providers face a dilemma: They not only need to be innovative to provide high quality care but also must reduce the costs of that care. Is this really a contradiction?
No. In fact one effort can be directly connected to the other – by increasing workflow efficiency.
How increased efficiency leads to high productivity, as well as to exceeding quality, can be demonstrated by looking at high-tech industry – e.g. the medical engineering industry. Strong process orientation is a common and important factor in reaching and maintaining excellence and best-in-class quality. This is reflected by not only measuring criteria, incentive structures, and productivity programmes, but also by the motivation of the people involved. Yet, at the same time competitive advantage requires innovations that exactly match the market’s needs. Such innovations in products and solutions are the key to success. Innovation management has therefore developed as a discipline and core competence.
These management experiences and insights of driving innovation and at the same time cost efficiency can and often need to be transferred to different markets and businesses – and also to healthcare providers.
During the symposium, examples of innovation and efficiency in healthcare will be demonstrated as well as examples of how industry experience could be applied to hospital management or the management of radiology departments. We will also see how a close collaboration between healthcare providers and the industry can drive innovations in technology and workflow – to shape the future of medicine together.
CV: Britta Fünfstück graduated in engineering physics in Linz, Austria. For the past ten years she has worked in management consulting and healthcare, in Germany and the USA, where she worked with the Boston Consulting Group from 1998-2000. She then joined Siemens Healthcare, where she has managed business development projects, led product definition teams in healthcare IT, and has been responsible for product planning, global marketing and sales of MR systems. At the beginning of 2008 she was appointed to lead the team as Head of Business Development/Strategy.
This article was published on 03/01/2008