Jake Crampton serves as Chief Executive Officer for MedSpeed.
On April 11th, Jake will speak on a panel at Becker's Hospital Review 9th Annual Meeting. As part of an ongoing series, Becker's is talking to healthcare leaders who plan to speak at the conference, which will take place April 11-14, 2018 in Chicago.
To learn more about the conference and Jake's session, click here.
Question: Who or what are the disruptors that have your attention? Why?
Jake Crampton: I think [one of] the biggest disruptors in our industry is the industry itself. We are hearing about all kinds of disruptive partnerships, acquisitions and the like, which points to the fact that the status quo healthcare industry … may be on its way to becoming a relic. Health systems are joining together as never before, they are buying health plans and they are partnering to form drug companies. As someone who works every day to disrupt and change healthcare transportation, I am all for innovative [and] positive disruption. We are all better when we challenge ourselves to think bigger. It is cliché, but go big or go home certainly applies here.
Q: How do you see the barrier between competitors and collaborators changing?
JC: Everything in healthcare now points toward value and enhanced patient-customer experience. To be successful, healthcare companies are realizing that there is value in letting go of their desire to control all functions and explore opportunities to collaborate both with each other and with outside entities to create value. Our industry needs to iteratively learn from itself and from other industries in order to find new ways to better deliver on the promise of more convenient healthcare at a lower cost. John Donne, [an old English poet] wrote that ""no man is an island."" I think we can apply that here and say that no healthcare system is an island either, and those that embrace collaboration are improving their chance to succeed.
To tie this into what I know best — intra-company logistics — we are seeing more and more systems that used to compete on everything partner in areas where they feel they can benefit from [a partner's] scale and efficiency while enhancing their core value proposition. Intra-company logistics — the strategic, systematic, enterprise-wide movement of patient- and business-critical materials — is one of these areas. We see this as a reflection of a macro trend where a more complex, more highly-scaled expanded continuum of care environment drives needs extensively enough to require a more open collaboration orientation.
Q: All healthcare is local. What about your market influences your organization's business or operations most?
JC: I have two main thoughts on this. First, is that yes, there will always be a local element to healthcare. As an intra-company logistics provider, we see local elements in every health system, laboratory and other healthcare organization we serve. Some are a function of geography — for example, expanded transportation operations for intensely rural areas — [while] some are a function of demographics — [such as] gourmet food services in high-end urban areas. As a service provider, it makes our job more interesting to understand these local dynamics so we can develop tailored services that meet the needs of each market. One notable example that is directly relevant to MedSpeed is the way that many health systems are considering different ways to embrace home healthcare — a developing twist on the local nature, of which health systems have always been a part of.
[My] second [thought] is that I don't believe healthcare is as local as it used to be, and I think healthcare organizations are realizing that and changing their business models appropriately. Companies are choosing ""centers of excellence"" and flying their employees where needed to get that best in class care. The increasing popularity of telemedicine allows patients to consult with doctors from anywhere. Health systems are responding to these changes and trying to adapt to this evolving universe by building off of this trend in various ways. We see this in the form of groundbreaking partnerships, advertising [beyond the] region and state to attract new patients, and doing many other innovative things to attract patients outside of the traditional 30-mile-or-less healthcare radius.