Less is More. A major filter in healthspottr's screen for "innovations we like" is whether it helps us do more with less. Dr. Fisher is the principal investigator of the Dartmouth Atlas and a faculty member of The Outcomes Group, a band of "healthy skeptics" who exist to question the popular notion that more healthcare is better. Dr. Fisher's papers, especially Supply-Sensitive Care, offer the data that shows it is not. Turns out that supply and demand behave erratically in healthcare -- more supply actually increases price and lowers quality. Or, a hospital bed built is a hospital bed filled. Defined as "care whose services are not determined by well articulate medical theory, much less by scientific evidence," supply-sensitive care would be excessive testing and unnecessary physician or ER visits. Our Achilles heel. Happily, lots of innovators on this list are attempting to address this (ADM, American Well, HealthLoop) because they also understand that (excepting primary doctors) we don't need more of anything in healthcare; we need to use what we already have better. Dr. Fisher is also a director of research at the Dartmouth Institute for Health Care Policy and Clinical Practice. Scott Shreeve isn't the only one who thinks Dr. Fisher would've been a better choice for HHS Secretary than an insurance industry nob.

Writing in Supply-Sensitive Care: "Hospital beds, once built, will he used."