California’s Sutter Health reaps rewards from investments in innovation

Seven administrative and clinical executives from across the health system discuss efforts from an electronic ICU to an AI symptom checker to ‘smart hospital’ tech.

Sutter Health, a health system based in Sacramento, California, has made innovation a part of its mission. It’s made investments in many different technologies, research projects and medical advancements to improve the patient experience and patient outcomes.

From patient safety technology to a virtual symptom checker and more, here is a closer look at Sutter Health’s efforts to innovate, based on Healthcare IT News interviews with executives from throughout the health system and an infographic from Sutter.

Integrated networks such as Sutter Health foster a more user-friendly healthcare system, promote patient-centered care and drive healthier outcomes by coordinating medical and support services between caregivers, leaders there said. This integration allows doctors and hospitals to share innovations and work together to ensure patients get the care they need when they need it so that they can benefit from faster recovery and reduced costs.

“As a not-for-profit system, our ‘shareholders’ are our communities themselves,” said Chris Waugh, chief innovation officer at Sutter Health. “We’re measured on our ability to provide health outcomes for the populations we serve. That’s a very pure innovation mandate, which is easy to be enthusiastic about.”

The integrated system allows the innovation teams to test in a very diverse population set that is reflective of the U.S. at large. Innovation for Sutter Health is not limited to a certain demographic or disease state, which is very liberating for an entrepreneurial team, said Waugh.

“An integrated health system can handle a wide variety of clinical needs so innovation teams aren’t as constrained,” he explained. “If we see that primary care connects to dermatology or obstetrics, we can design for that rather than pulling back because that’s not part of the system. Integrated health models are the systems that allow innovation to run toward the connection points instead of running away from them.”

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