Category Archives: Think

Adoption Rate

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Aviation and Health Care. Let us take two industries to compare a simple aspect – Adoption Rate.
Both industries are part of each and everyone’s lives. There are people who might fly or have never flown, but there is no person who has never visited a Doctor / Hospital.
In case of emergency, in aviation, the Pilot who is responsible for the safety of the flight knows that if he makes a mistake, even his life is in danger. On the contrary, let us look at Health Care. The Doctor is responsible for his patient’s life, but in this case, if there is a failure or medical error, the Doctor does not loose life, but the patient does. Is this a case point for why the error adoption rates being long and low in Health Care?
If there is a flight accident, the instance is completely evaluated and analysed by an independent team and the findings are quickly circulated across all airlines across the world. In return, all airlines update the required findings and roll them out to their pilots. Also, long papers and thesis reports are not circulated to Pilots, but the findings are either incorporated into the Pilot’s checklists or they are called for updated training. This happens very quickly so that there is no other life lost because of any error.
If there is a medical accident, the similar approach is not adopted. The hospital may or may not bring out the error in the first place and secondly, even if they did, the error finding reports are not immediately available for everyone. The hospital might incorporate the findings, but for others to follow takes a very very long time and in certain cases, even centuries for the change to come.
Why is there this much of difference in adoption rates when in both industries the cost of error is a life? Is there a case in point?

Educating the Healthcare Consumer

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There are over 1000 startups just focusing on Healthcare in India and we see more and more coming up each day. If you look at the pattern of the startups, predominantly we see competitive startup’s. There is one person who is wanting to solve a problem and they are many others following the trend but with an additional feature or functionality. Consider finding Doctors as a pain point. There are few early adopters like Practo, but over the last eight years, there are more than 50 startups in the same space offering similar services. The next thing what happened is the startups have diversified to different cities becoming first in their city. Competition is good, the consumer gets to taste more convenience and functionality. But what should not happen is withdrawal from using technology.
The key area what we need to focus is to streamline the problem-solving abilities and diversify the solution offerings based on the regional requirement. One solution does not fit all.
Consumer education plays a very vital role in building a successful startup and solving a problem. The key aspect of Consumer education is to reach out to the end user and help them utilize services available and for this, education should start at the ground level. Reaching out and working with NGO’s who work with varied population, partnering with Primary Health Centers, organizing educative seminars and workshops at meeting points (Panchayat meetings, Locality meetings etc.) will go a long way.

Where is our Creativity?

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Creativity is almost lost from our lives. We live in an era where everything is turning mechanical. Right from the alarm in the morning to tracking your sleep, everything is automated. Earlier, we need to set the alarm on the clock each night before we sleep (because we would have switched it off in the morning), but today, your phone can set the alarm for each day of the week at the same time or different times.
When you get up in the morning, some days you feel tired (because you might not have got a complete 8-hour sleep or you were disturbed. But, today, your phone will tell you what quality of sleep you had and how long have you slept and how many times you woke up.
What this is doing to us is killing our ability to think. Every aspect of life is taken care and in the coming decades we will also stop driving and let the automatic cars do the job.
Creativity is not a switch which you can switch on/off when you need. It is the ability to see, feel and communicate with the world around you. The next time you are doing something brings on the creativity by being present in the situation. Think differently about the same problem which you solved yesterday. Change the way you communicate and see which is the best way of communication you can build on.

The Perception Problem

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Let us accept that we do not have answers to all the questions. But, we do not want to accept the reality. It is generally more difficult to not know answers to questions. We try and avoid to say ‘I don’t know’.
What happens when you are thinking of bigger problems like the Economy in the country, or the Healthcare system or Politics? We will go with what the majority of people are saying about the issue and if it matches with our thinking, we go with them. We perceive that what the majority are saying is correct. But, we do not spend time to think if this is the truth or not. If the issue is supported with data, then there is a little support to the bias, but if it does not, then there is a bigger problem. Without understanding the actual facts, we also tend to solve the problem with everyone else.
Apply this to your startup. When you have an idea to solve a problem, doing a market research and evaluating the market potential might give you a certain way to address the problem. But, what really makes the cut is the ability for you to think and solve it the best way which seems possible.
Henry Ford once said “If I ask people what they want, they would ask for faster horses”, he identified the problem and solved it by building a car. He did not go with what the majority said.
When Apple brought out the iPad, there was no competition for them. They were the first. Steve Jobs identified the problem of bringing computers to your hand and the iPad rolled out which not only created history, but the entire pace of computing changed overnight. There is enough competition today and this competition is creating more innovative products.
So the next time you wish to solve a problem, do look at what the majority are thinking, but adapt to your ability to think and address the problem.

Attitude towards Error

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We all make mistakes and we learn from them. Only when you understand and analyze the error can you incorporate into your life and the mistake never comes up again. But, if it is a one off fix, be rest assured that it will come back.
Toyota is quite famous for their Quality and how they incorporate their learning’s back into the system without it occurring back. This is the reason they are epitome of success and many organisations try to incorporate this style into their organisations.
On the Toyota Production Floor, when there is flaw in the production, the employee immediately switches off his machine and all the other machines come to a halt. Managers and other personal gather at where the production stopped, analyze the error and incorporate their learning’s into the system so that they are prepared for it the next time.
As entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs what we need to develop is the attitude towards the error. When we find a flaw, how do we react to it? How do we incorporate our learning’s into our system is the most important aspect of execution.
When there is an error next time, don’t ignore, but study and incorporate into your framework.

Contradictory Data

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Knowledge does not progress merely by gathering data, but by looking for contradictory data. 
 
Many a times we like to make decisions based on available data. You want to buy a car and you start looking out based on your budget and interest. In the process we ask our friends as to what their recommendation is and take in their suggestions. We go with the popular choice and then make our own decision.
In this process, we usually would like to hear only the positives of the observations and do not ask what the potential problems might be in the maintenance of the car.
Five years ago, when I was looking to change my car, I walked up to the Honda show room. The Civic was one of the possible product I was looking for, but I did hear about the low ground clearance and the problems it might give over the period of time when the chases keeps hitting the ground at Speed breakers and bad roads. I shared with the sales person about this observation which I found to be disturbing. The sales person immediately took me to his desk, and told me “I will give you contacts of 20 people who own this car across various regions in the state. Call them from here and even if 1 person says that they faced problems because of this, I suggest you don’t buy this car.” I really liked the confidence of him and chose to call few numbers. I did call and no one gave me any negative answer.
My impression on the car and the reviews changed completely and I was ready to buy. I never picked it up for other reasons, but was completely convinced with the car.
Knowingly or unknowingly I used contradictory data to challenge my assumptions and today, I can correlate to this aspect.
When you are working on an idea, help identify the contradictory data – what if this does not happen, what if this market analysis does not work etc. This gives the power for you to be prepared in case if things don’t go as expected.

Challenges which cannot be overcome

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We encounter situations which we feel that it cannot be overcome in any way. We are struck and nothing can be done. One thinking is that this is never the case. All situations can be overcome and all it requires is applying our learnings and experiences. At the precise moment, what we need is the ability to think and how we can think different.
In 2009, US Airways flight 1549 was hit by goose while taking off and the pilot’s had nowhere to go over the skies of the densely populated New York City. Captain Sullenberger III maintained his calm and guided the flight to safely land on the Hudson river. This is not the first time an airplane is landing on water, but this is the first time everyone survived the landing.
What is different? In all situations where a flight landed on water, pilots followed the same checklists. Why did other situations fail and this was a success?
Pilot Captain Sullenberger III not only followed the checklist but ensured he was calm and focusing on the task at hand – to land the plane. Since he lost both the engines, his capability of flying back to Newark or any other runway was out of option. When he had no other options, he focused on the available option. Utilized all his skills and brought the plan down in water in the best way possible.
There is no challenge which cannot be overcome, it is the thought of how you can manage the situation and focusing on what is available is what makes the different.

Dosha Vs Personalized Medicine

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I shared my thoughts on Personalized Medicine being the future of medicine earlier. Recently, I saw a TEDx Talk by Dr. Russ Altman on the topic of Personalized Prescription.

What Dr. Russ talks about is how medications works differently on various kinds of bodies and he uses examples to demonstrate how Codin works on different people. For few, it works like a magic and for few others, it does not help at all.

Our body is made of molecules and medicines are a combination of various elements working with these molecules to bring down the pain which our body is going through.

Now, let us look at the Dosha’s in our body as described in Ayurveda. The human body is categorized into 3 Dosha’s (Vata, Pitta, and Kapha). Ayurveda is the science of handling ailments based on the body type and customized treatment.

I am looking at comparing and contrasting as to what Dr. Russ is saying and what we already have in India.

A combination of Personalized Prescription and Ayurveda is something which will benefit the human kind.

What can we do next?

Blackbox Thinking

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Every flight is equipped with a Blackbox, which records all the conversations in the Cockpit and each and every instruction given to the plane. There is no debate on how this is helpful to track how the plane has been operational.

Our brain is our blackbox and it records each and every instance of our life, making us what we are and how we behave and handle our thought process. What if we decode our brain from time to time and look at how it has been processing our experiences?

Many a times, our mind takes over our thoughts. It clubs our emotions to our feelings and gives out instructions on how we react to situations. Only few of us can actually note these reactions and understand the instructions from the brain and then take action. This comes out of practice. The practice of thinking and practice of handling instructions from brain and mind.

When it is a good news or success, we celebrate. But, when there is failure, we allow our mind to rule over and react according to what it feels. Success comes from managing this reaction. This is the reason successful people become successful. They look at their failures and downtimes, practice thinking and understand the reactions from the brain and then take action.

So, the next time you experience failure, evaluate what your feelings are and act according to what the brain says. This will give you the required result rather than a

Creating an Experience

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Creating Experience in Healthcare is focusing on building personal relationships with clients. How do we incorporate the personal connections into technology?

When you enter any showroom or inquire for a house or participate in any event, they collect your personal details and then based on the assessment of the sales person, they categorize you for what kind of potential client you are. Based on which category you fall into, the system will keep reminding the sales person for timely follow up’s with you for a potential sale.

In a similar way, incorporating the patient experience based on what category they fall into (Inpatient/ Outpatient / kind of treatment they come to the hospital etc.) can help the administration provide the experience. Over the period of time, providing experience becomes a habit.

In their book Patient Comes Second authors Paul Spiegelman and Britt Berrett highlight how Healthcare organizations are developing the habit of cultivating experience in various places across America.

In countries like India, where we have challenges for various reasons, along with building a culture of experience, technology should also help to cultivate the habit in the workforce by incorporating experience into the workflow.

What do you think?