https://www.newyorker.com/news/letter-from-silicon-valley/our-ghost-kitchen-future
This is a great thinking piece from the New York Times. A ghost kitchen is a trailer set up in a parking lot, with chefs cooking dishes from restaurants, sometimes from 3-4 different restaurants. This can result in serving meals in the parking lot, or setting up for local delivery AS IF delivered from the main restaurant. This solves the problem of underemployed chefs at restaurants with inadequate social distancing seating, or restaurants that have had to remain closed for some reason.
Observations:
- Placing ghost kitchens in parking lots leverages old spaces
- Ghost kitchens emphasize hyperlocal location
- Ghost kitchens are thriving during the pandemic
- Ghost kitchens leverage internet tools: apps, A/B testing, analytics, and allows nimble innovation, recombination, creativity, disruption
Read the article, and come back here to think with me. What could healthcare learn from Ghost Kitchens? We are already seeing the beginning of disruption in healthcare: the use of telehealth visits with patients has increased the flexibility of patients and providers by removing geography as a constraint (in some cases). What could A/B testing, or analytics do to further serve our patients in a high-quality, personalized, lower cost way?
CMIO’s take? Sometimes, you have to look outside your usual work-sphere to get the best ideas. Sometimes you have to be willing to disrupt yourself before someone else gets there first.
Love this idea! Here’s an idea – lease empty storefronts/mall spaces/abandoned buildings and set up pop up healthcare units, including: dentists and dental hygienists, optometrists, podiatrists, health focused social workers, mental health workers, pharmacists, and MDs and nurses for whole person health checks. Include a pop-up pharmacy and other health supply vendors. Include health care advocates who can help people enroll in the health care exchange or apply for Medicare/Medicaid. Also, please include consumer health librarians!!!