Medical Innovation. Over the last decade, America has produced half, half, of the world's new medicine and medical devices. Today, 12 of the top 20 medical device companies are headquartered in the U.S. Whether or not this holds is anyone's guess, but the tremendous amount of innovation that occurs in our medical field here in America benefits health systems all over the world.
One concerning statistic is that America only ranks 17th out of 21 OECD nations in the effective rate of R&D tax credits.
A big problem is that a lot of these medical innovations aren't making it to the places that need it the most. Sure, we have come up with awesome new knowledge and gadgets. But it only does so much good if it's mostly in the hands of the world's top physicians at the Cleveland Clinic.
While our country's rural health clinics and critical access hospitals have made leaps and bounds in their health care service delivery infrastructure (through EMR and tele-health), they're still light years behind suburban facilities.
And to be honest, people in the burbs don't have nearly the health needs that people in rural and urban areas do.
