Insourcing Health Care Innovation

Many health care professionals find it irritating when management gurus recommend solving health care's problems with approaches they would “copy and paste” from unrelated industries — a former chief executive of a manufacturing company claims that the same simple lessons that enabled him to transform his own industry can improve value in health care, or a business-school professor offers an eight-point leadership plan that she's translated into health care as easily as if she'd translated it into French. Many people who work in health care value outside perspectives and are open to new approaches — and yet bristle at facile recommendations emerging from these translations.