The University of Miami School of Business hosted its yearly health care conference Monday. The main topic of discussion was “disruptive innovation,” which organizer and professor Steven Ullmann says means "to disrupt how we do health care provision in this country."
Ullmann says the health care system now is fragmented, and that makes it expensive.
"What we're seeing is the highest cost of health care in the country here in South Florida," he says, based on a study by Dartmouth Atlas of Health Care.
But he says there’s a way to disrupt the system to get better health care access that is also cheaper.
"What Walgreens has done, for example, is that they're completely disrupting the way that primary care is being provided," he says.
Large retail pharmacy patients can find the closest facility online, make a same-day appointment and receive a prescription from the on-site health care provider -- essentially, a one-stop shop in health care.
Ullman says privatizing government healthcare programs like Medicaid and Medicare may lead to more disruption, and eventually greater access and lower costs.
