Giving Compass' Take:

• TriplePundit reports on Omar Ishrak, the CEO of medical device company Medtronic, who believe in "values-based healthcare," meaning that companies get paid for positive outcomes, not the amount of stuff that gets sold.

• This type of approach would benefit economically-challenged communities, but achieving such goals within our current system will be a tall task. How can nonprofits in the healthcare sector make incremental changes to align with values?

• It could start with cutting costs. Here's what some states can do in that regard.

Medtronic CEO Omar Ishrak is out to remake the world’s healthcare system.

“It always bothers me that there are so many millions of people in the world who still don’t have access to something that was invented in the 1950s by our company,” Ishrak stated in 2015. At the time, he was talking about one of the world’s oldest examples of biotechnology: the cardiac pacemaker.

But Ishrak may be best known for his role in incentivizing discussion around the realities of the healthcare industry’s future: specifically, how leaders can align value and price in an industry that is expected to exceed $500 billion in sales by 2021. He’s also passionate about keeping costs manageable for patients.

“[Clinical] value has to be tied to economic value, otherwise people will not be able to afford the care we provide,” Ishrak explained.

He was speaking at the third CECP CEO Investor Forum last February at the Time Warner Center in New York.

Unfortunately, said Ishrak, “We live in a world where we get paid for our technology with a promise to improve outcomes, not a guarantee, a promise.”

While it’s a “promise” that is based on believable outcomes, clinical trials and earlier results, Ishrak points out, there’s no guarantee within today’s healthcare system that the health of a patient will be improved by a given treatment. Improved health requires a whole new structure of support. It’s a fee-for-service structure that doesn’t support either healthcare objectives or economic sustainability, said Ishrak.

Read the full article about bringing values-based healthcare to everyone by Jan Lee at TriplePundit.