Beyond Build vs. Buy: Strategic Approaches to Engaging with Healthcare Innovation Communities

The conventional "build or buy" approach that has dominated healthcare innovation thinking for decades is quickly becoming outdated. Across the interconnected digital health ecosystem, forward-looking organizations are embracing more sophisticated strategies for innovation community engagement that blend proprietary development, strategic partnerships, and collaborative participation.

This strategic evolution arrives at a critical moment. With global digital health funding surpassing $29 billion in 2023 while 98% of startups face significant adoption barriers, healthcare organizations must develop more nuanced community engagement strategies to remain competitive.

Healthcare leaders face a central question: What's the optimal way to engage with innovation communities to maximize impact while managing resources effectively? Finding the answer requires understanding the complete spectrum of engagement possibilities.

Building a proprietary innovation community offers maximum control and customization. This strategy works especially well for organizations with distinctive clinical specialties needing focused innovation, substantial internal resources for community infrastructure investment, strategic goals centered on developing proprietary intellectual property, and longer-term innovation horizons. Mayo Clinic's Platform initiative demonstrates this approach with a comprehensive innovation ecosystem that combines internal expertise and external collaborators, all coordinated under their strategic direction.

Alternatively, joining established innovation communities provides quick access to diverse stakeholders with reduced upfront investment but less directional control. This approach excels when market speed is essential, internal resources are constrained, exposure to diverse perspectives is valuable, or rapid innovation capability development is necessary. Organizations like Advocate Aurora Health have successfully employed this method by participating in multiple innovation communities rather than building their own, gaining immediate access to vetted solutions addressing their priority challenges.

Many leading healthcare organizations now implement sophisticated hybrid strategies combining multiple engagement models. Staged evolution begins with partnerships while developing internal capabilities, allowing organizations to gain experience before taking on greater leadership roles. Providence Health illustrates this progression, evolving from an innovation community participant to a digital health investor and incubator operator. Focused micro-communities within larger established innovation networks let organizations concentrate on specific clinical areas while benefiting from broader ecosystem resources, providing a balanced solution that combines focus with efficiency. Strategic resource allocation between internal innovation capability development and external community participation creates a portfolio approach that maximizes learning opportunities while managing risk.

When crafting an innovation community strategy, consider key factors like strategic alignment with organizational priorities, resource requirements for platform development and operations, timeline considerations for showing innovation outcomes, and competitive positioning implications.

As Kaiser Permanente's Chief Innovation Officer observed, "The question isn't whether to participate in innovation communities, but how to strategically engage in ways that accelerate your organization's specific objectives while contributing to the broader healthcare ecosystem."

Innovation community strategies should evolve over time. Successful organizations continuously reassess and adjust based on developing organizational capabilities, market dynamics shifts, lessons from initial community engagement, and emerging innovation priorities. The key lies in maintaining flexibility while ensuring strategy alignment with broader digital transformation goals.

Ultimately, tomorrow's healthcare leaders will be those who most effectively leverage the collective intelligence of innovation communities – whether through building, partnering, or thoughtfully blending approaches to create maximum value.

Ready to develop your organization's optimal innovation community strategy? Download Decimal Health's comprehensive white paper, "The Power of Community: Revolutionizing Digital Health Innovation Through Collaborative Ecosystems," for a detailed framework to guide your strategic decision-making process.