Transformation is About Winning Hearts and Minds

A Conversation with Dr. Junaid Bajwa, Chief Medical Scientist at Microsoft Research

Dr. Bajwa was previously the Global Lead for Strategic Alliances and Solutions for the Global Digital Centre of Excellence at Merck Sharp & Dohme. He cofounded “VelocityHealth”, Europe’s first prevention focused digital-health accelerator, in partnership with Telefonica, and led his team to deliver the “NHS Testbed” in partnership with Verily Life Sciences (part of Alphabet), which the Health Service Journal recognized as the “Best Pharmaceutical Partnership with the NHS” in 2018.

Episode Takeaways

• Junaid always had an interest in using innovation to make his and his colleagues working lives easier. However, there’s a delta between the innovation we hear about and actually getting it to a place where it’s making a difference for patients and practitioners. The more we can reduce that delta and speed the delivery of innovation, the better off our health system and patients are.
• Access to software and tools isn’t enough. If no one ever teaches the doctors, nurses, admins, and others how to use them, it’s worthless. Transformation can be difficult. It’s about winning hearts and minds, but it becomes important to gather intelligence about the current state of things and look for productivity gains where you can. Look for the small victories: email templates easing the EKG and X Ray communication process, improve the experience of care.
• The fragmentation of the health ecosystem isn’t something that you learn about in med school or residency. You learn when you get into the thick of it. We have to do a better job of being servant leaders, focused on the patient, and that helps untangle that fragmentation. Look at the pandemic. Video consultations were never supposed to happen, but with a common mission and alignment, the need created by COVID showed us the way.
• It’s sometimes said that culture can crush innovation or change. Now, the pace of technological innovation is moving faster than ever. In the case of AI, we need to make change a bit less disruptive. There’s data suggesting that medical knowledge is doubling every 73 days. How could anyone keep up? These new tools with make that challenge less daunting and keep adopters on the cutting edge of innovation.