The expert discussions at our Healthcare Impact Action Conference last November 11th, 2021 were the conclusion of a series of Roundtables starting in August, 2021 to explore five major societal challenges. Together we explored the major issues relating to these topics and isolated concrete challenges and promising pathways to address them.  In the coming months we will be engaging with innovators and entrepreneurs to winnow through a wide range of possible solutions and determine those most deserving of our expert and investment support.

Pandemic Preparedness: What we have learned from our experience.

It has been a strange and challenging two years.  Nearly 850,000 deaths in the U.S. alone and Trillions of Dollars of economic support.  Hopefully we will be returning to normal soon. Vaccine Technology has obviously advanced, along with testing and therapeutics.  But what else have we learned from our shared experience?  As the world becomes smaller and more populated we need to prepare for an outbreak of “The next Virus”.  Are we prepared?  What changes or plans must we implement as a society to minimize the impact on our people and our healthcare system?

Solution selection criteria:

1. Data Integration Solutions
2. Providing Information for Healthcare Professionals
3. Providing better advice for Public Officials
4. Supply Chain Improvements – via product, system or sourcing
5. Equipment Improvements – increased efficacy, comfort and cost

It is unfortunate (or inevitable) that the pandemic and the public policy response became fully politicized.  To learn lessons from our experience we must step back from the polarized “debate” and instead seek some core truths. 

We began by identifying the clear failures and successes during the past two years.  Via our conversations and roundtables with a wide variety of experts we focused on those elements which were felt to be universal rather than regional. Let’s start with the recognizable fail points in our response to Covid-19

Core Failures:

1. Slow Response – We need more Boots on the Ground.
2. Lack of equipment – Shortages of respirators, protective gear, etc…
3. Poor Sharing of Data – Between countries and within the U.S.
4. Overwhelmed Healthcare system/workers – There was no plan for an extended pandemic response
5. Poor Sharing of Best practices – No clear platform allowed bogus treatments equal credibility as proven practices
6. Politicization of response including mask and vaccine mandates – Insufficient healthcare professionals inside the policy process
7. Poor messaging – A reliance on sound bites and “clickbait” headlines disrespects the public intelligence.
8. Lack of trust in the system – 5,6, and 7 exacerbated existing distrust of public officials and worsened the public relationship with the healthcare system.
9. Wellness Issues were ignored – If the most at risk were the least healthy why did we not spend the last twenty four months advocating for better wellness care.

Vaccine vs. Natural Immunization is a wonderful test case for policy problems in data, trust, best practice, politicization, messaging and trust.  In all cases a big portion of pushback among the vaccine reluctant relates back to basic failures in our means of collecting, analyzing and distributing information in a timely unbiased fashion.

We should note that some of these failures were addressed during the course of the Pandemic and become some starting points for “Lessons Learned”. Unfortunately other fail points remain unaddressed and will be starting points for “Lessons Not Learned”.  Now the good news, we did in fact experience some wonderful successes.

Core Successes:

1. Vaccine Development – Core science has expanded at a remarkable pace at will continue to do so.
2. FDA emergency use authorization process – A program that should be extended further for compassionate care, off Label usage and other circumstances.
3. Public Private Partnerships – Project Warp Speed and other production accelerators worked exceptionally well once they were activated. 
4. Flexibility of our manufacturing base – Our manufacturing base proved remarkably nimble at pivoting to meet new needs.
5. State Based coordination of response between healthcare providers – (once the programs) were instituted the state-level coordination programs were highly effective.  We need a standardization of data frameworks to allow cross system integration.
6. Vast quantity of data collection – Now we need better systems and processes to use it.

With a topic such as Pandemic Preparedness we have to embrace the fact that many of these lessons are about Public Policy.  Here we will address those lessons which can be supported via innovation, Policy Issues are more relevant for our May Impact Policy Conference.  Once the major Lessons were identified we selected some common innovation challenges which persist across them.  

1. Lack of a universal data collection aggregation and dissemination platform.
2. Lack of a respected neutral clearinghouse for best practices. 
3. Poor equipment solutions.
4. Inadequate Equipment stockpiling, and distribution.
5. Inflexible Healthcare operations systems

We can then convert these challenges into selection criteria.

Solution selection criteria: 

1. Data Integration Solutions- plug and play between operating systems and healthcare networks.
2. Providing Information for Healthcare Professionals
3. Providing better advice for Public Officials
4. Supply Chain Improvements – via product, system or sourcing
5. Equipment Improvements – increased efficacy, comfort and cost

If you would like to learn more about this important event sign up here:

After the solution roundtables we will also be providing policy papers with further detail into our process and will be holding investor roadshows for the most promising solutions.