The What
Dr. Thomas Royer, CEO and president of CHRISTUS Health, believes the CHRISTUS Innovations Institute can help transform the American health care industry. The new Institute will act as an "idea farm" as well as a teacher.
- It will rigorously evaluate new technologies.
- It will issue reports on industry trends.
- It will serve as a test bed for new types of health care and new models of care delivery.
- It will inform the industry of research, clinical and management innovations, and successes from inside
CHRISTUS Health's own vast network. CHRISTUS has teaching and research hospitals, clinics, and
long-term care facilities in more than 70 locations, across seven U.S. states and in Mexico. - It will be an "institute without borders," bringing in the best of what's new and improved in health care from around the world. The Innovation Institute's first investigative foray took the Futures Task Force II from New Orleans to Canada, from Oregon to India and other places. The delegates brought home important lessons learned from the successes -- and failures -- of health care innovators working in some of the world's most challenging environments.
The How
The Innovations Institute will share its findings in three ways through:
- Publishing
- Training (at the Institute's Center for Excellence and online)
- Focused Conferences
A "Big Think" Summit -- similar in stature to the world-famous Technology Entertainment Design (TED)
conferences (TED's focus is similar to CHRISTUS': "ideas worth spreading") -- will cap the Institute's yearly presentation calendar.
It is the goal of the Innovations Institute to help the American health care system successfully manage the challenges presented by rising costs; rapidly changing technologies; the uninsured; reform pressures; increasing multi-culturalism; end of life care; and an aging population cohort, the Boomers, that promises to overwhelm our existing infrastructure.
