MDR-TB: A Healthcare Crisis of Our Own Design

By frog healthcare group - July 27, 2009

Last month I attended the Pacific Health Summit in Seattle. It is a pretty exclusive venue (aspiring to be the "Davos of Health Care") attended by senior representatives from the world of health care and public policy (such as Dr. Anthony Fauci from the NIH, Dr. Margaret Chan from WHO, Chris Viehbacher CEO of sanofi-aventis and Tadataka Yamada who heads the Global Health program for the Gates Foundation). The conference chooses a specific challenge to focus on each year. This year's topic was Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis (MDR-TB)--more about that in a minute.

The venue provided a remarkable opportunity to reflect on the gaps between the promise and "delivery" of innovation. The design and business community have conspired over the last few years to polish up the term "innovation" to a high gloss. It is like Apple chrome now, this shiny gleaming element that can be applied to any surface. But what happens when innovation meets with the messy reality of domains like public health?

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