When most people picture healthcare innovation, they imagine Silicon Valley startups, AI breakthroughs, or Fortune 500 companies rolling out the latest digital health benefit. But some of the most meaningful changes are happening in places that rarely make the shortlist: school districts, public agencies, municipal employers, and state risk pools. Not because innovation is part of the mandate, but because the cost of doing nothing keeps going up.
I’ve watched this shift up close working with public employers across the country. What I’ve seen challenges a deeply held assumption in this industry, which is that the public sector means slow, bureaucratic, and behind.
