When he outlined his vision for the future of health care, former Google CEO Eric Schmidt identified increasing health care data sharing as the key to driving innovation. Schmidt warned that “organizing around business divisions of product lines can lead to the formation of silos,” which creates real barriers to innovative breakthroughs that require shared information, aligned measures and agreed-upon success metrics to identify, improve and scale innovative ideas.
The aging innovation sector — including payors, providers, entrepreneurs and researchers — is among the most siloed of ecosystems. When these stakeholders act individually by siloing data, adopting metrics independently and measuring outcomes autonomously, innovation is stifled. In this type of environment, breakthrough ideas lack the infrastructure necessary to maximize and scale them for rapidly expanding aging populations.