SCANNING THE HEALTH SECTOR AS AN INDUSTRY EXPERT

Innovation has a crucial role in achieving competitive advantage in the markets for any organisation, even though there are associated challenges in assessing the impact such as difficulty in isolation and measurement. For health care organisations there is an increasing need for innovation to be competitive and offer new type of treatments for patients. Available  knowledge on the nature of innovativeness organisations of health care and its influence on the performance is very little. (Moreira, Gherman and Sousa,2017).  innovations in health care to a large extent are instituted by stakeholders of health care and if it originates from the organisation, it is piloted, changed and adopted. If the innovation is unassociated with health care organisation, health care technology company evolves, changes and merchandises the technology to the organisations. The  knowledge generated by the  health services researchers is rarely exploited by the designers of innovation, and health care services researchers cannot provide significant insights associated with  value of emerging insights that can be comparable. This results in a knowledge that is deficient in approaches that encourage the design of most precious innovations. (Lehoux, et. al.2008). Operational performance is influenced by innovations in service and processes, however there is no significant impact on the  overall financial performance of the organisation. The present study discusses on the innovation of health care systems and advantages and disadvantages associated with innovation in markets for health care systems.

The ability of the introductory companies to get economic profits positively is the first mover advantage. Three positive sources are responsible for the creation of the first mover advantages that include technological leadership, preemption of assets and switching costs of buyers. A wide range of technologies are available for health care that impact positively on global health, but the issue lies in their accessibility, effectiveness and their sociocultural  appropriateness. New health technologies generally require quality standards and lack of a clear understanding on its functionality is challenging for developers of technology and prompts them for  an inferior approach that stifles innovation. compatibility can be reduced in an effort to maintain competitive advantage as well as hinder users into proprietary offerings as there is a possibility due to the motivation of developers of technology.  (Masum et.al,2013)

Devices that automate and minaturise blood tests using microscopic blood volumes were developed by the company. The nanotainer fingerstick for which the company is famous for, draws blood samples from the patients in microliters. However, the technology is criticized for not being scientifically peer reviewed. The Journal of Clinical Investigation found that the test results of the company were flagged outside the normal range and showed a significant interservice variability. The results between Theranos and other clinical services are not equivalent. 

In the above context, it is important to develop global technology health standards, as there is a possibility that such standards can provide health benefits in a  significant  manner around the world. If these health standards create health care technologies for lower costs, then the provided health budget would be more beneficial for health. Standards should speed up innovation in global health technologies. From the economic view point, monetary considerations are important, and open platforms reduce the possiblity of duplication.
However, global health technologies are costly to the end users, as the market for these technologies is small. Acceptance of global technology may be affected as it is applicable to higher income market. 

Innovations in the health care technologies definitely improve the standards of global health care. it is important to consider the compatibility of health care technologies to innovation. However, there are challenges for the adoption of these technologies as the technologies are incompatible with the organisations that decreases the pace of innovation. It is important to set the global health standards in such a way that they promote innovation and the standards should be cost effective and accessible to the end users. The global standards in the health care technologies should effectively promote innovation and end speculation as is the case with Theranos company. 

Lehoux, P., B. Williams-Jones, F. Miller, D. Urbach, and S. Tailliez. 2008. ?What leads to better health care innovation? Arguments for an integrated policy-oriented research agenda, Journal of Health Services Research & policy, 4(13): 251-254
Masum, H., Lackman, R., & Bartleson, K. (2013). Developing global health technology standards: what can other industries teach us? Globalization and Health, 9, (49).1-12
Moreira Maria, Gherman Madalina, Sousa Paulo(2017), Does Innovation Influence the Performance of Healthcare Organizations, Innovation: Management, Policy & Practice,19 (3)335-352