Evaluating Innovations in the Organization of Primary Care: What Type of Innovation Is It and How Well Does It Align with the Six Factors?

How can we evaluate if innovative health care ventures can do good—benefit society—and do well—become financially viable? This question is the topic of the first module in the Innovating in Health Care course book.

This note and "Health Stop (A): What Type of Innovation Is It?" (185-084) series enables readers to conduct an evaluation of innovative health care services in the context of innovative organizations for Primary Care Physicians (PCPs). They ask the reader to evaluate which, if any, of the different innovations for organizing PCPs could have helped Health Stop avoid its subsequent failure (not revealed in the case). In addition to Health Stop’s retail medical center model, the note reviews innovations that differ in location; virtual or bricks and mortar; other retail-based; and by payer/patient focus. The pair of a note and case emphasize that success or failure is shaped by correct identification of the type of organization—is it consumer-facing, technology-commercializing, or cost-controlling?—and the alignment of that type of organization with the Six Factors in the environment that critically affect it—Structure, Financing, Consumers, Public Policy, Accountability, and Technology.

Health Stop failed because it tried to become two different types of organizations—consumer-facing and cost-controlling—and thus had poor alignment with many of the Six Factors critical to its success. It is impossible to focus on more than one type. Some sort of partnership with the retail-based (e.g., CVS, Walgreens) or technology-based innovations (e.g., Aledade (see "Aledade." Harvard Business School Case 321-131), Agilon) could have helped to rescue it.