It’s no secret that various parts of the healthcare community are so-called late adopters of information technology products and services.

Healthcare scientists, technologists and innovators are often very good at pinpointing and solving real problems with their solutions and innovations. What happens next is the problem. Many times, either there is no wave to market or there is a massive wipe out.

How can we reach healthcare market shores riding the wave that improves adoption and diffusion of innovation with demonstrable benefit?

Short answer: it helps to know how the healthcare market works. It is not obvious or intuitive to the rational mind of a technologist or the uninitiated. It is complex with even the rules having rules along with well-travelled belief and behavioral rigidity. It is a behavioral market in addition to being data insightful.

It is good to recall that in all innovation there is a gap between what we can envision vs. what is technically possible vs. what is doable now vs. what is distributable.

How do you catch the wave of Health IT Innovation at a point where widespread distribution is likely?

To make the wave work for your innovation requires a convergence of Product, Market and Data. An alignment in time. You can equally miss the mark by being too fast or too slow.

A common experience is to have a great technological solution for a real healthcare problem completely miss the market opportunity. In this case the product conception and execution often precede the market acceptance by a large gap of time.

Conversely, the product may miss the market need by a wide margin. Electronic health record common experience comes to mind. And many mobile applications while elegant or fun may not solve a real problem.

The third part is the ability to access and use data related to the product, such as clinical efficacy and efficiency, as well as the market generated data on readiness, acceptance and clinical benefit.

The key is to find experienced and knowledgeable guides – professionals who have lived the healthcare market and successful technology innovation introduction.

Timing, as they say, is everything. It is not different in healthcare. But the rules of the road in healthcare are different from most other industries. You can do it yourself or catch the Product wave to Market supported and defined by Data.