Innovations Profile Series: Linda Li, MBA, Partner, Ventures, Healthcare Information Technology

In the new Cleveland Clinic Innovations profile series, members of the Innovations team share their journey to joining the Innovations department at Cleveland Clinic, what they find inspiring about their role and advice for potential inventors. In this inaugural profile, Linda Li, MBA, Partner, Ventures, Healthcare Information Technology, discusses her insights and what innovation means to her.

Q: Tell us what brought you to Cleveland Clinic Innovations?

A: I was a venture capital investor for 17 years and in the first 10 years I had quite a few successes. However, I was curious how I could contribute as an investor to transform the healthcare space and what kind of value I would bring to hospitals. So, I was searching for answers – curious to understand what the barriers are, what can facilitate Cleveland Clinic to adopt technologies, what are the bottlenecks to bring this digital technology to patients. I wanted to get closer to the context and understand what the problems were and how to provide solutions.

I was searching for one of the answers to a medical question and Cleveland Clinic popped up with some explanation. Before I closed the browser, I put Cleveland Clinic and Digital Health, four words, into Google and my job description popped up.

Q: Why have digital technologies been transforming every single sector but not healthcare?

A: There are very complicated reasons. The pair structure – the provider, the access to the healthcare services and the technology, the reliability or even the computing power and the safety, everything is kind of like a challenge and issue. Healthcare is just complicated, and if you really review the whole trend of the transformation from digital technology, fintech finance was the second to last industry that got transformed by digital technology. And there’s a reason, because the banking industry generally requires high reliability and high speed of computing power, and therefore the earlier you can deal with retail, you can deal with supply chain. Finance and healthcare are really the last two sectors in front of the whole transformation waves.

Q: Tell us about your role within the Innovations department and what is inspiring about your role?

A: The Ventures team is great! Before I came here I thought because this is one of the top hospitals, if they can adopt technology, that means we conquer maybe the toughest part of the healthcare system. Every clinician is so enthusiastic to provide their own opinion on a new idea and they’re so innovative. Once you tee up a problem or challenge in the clinical frontline, caregivers become innovative around what the solutions are and ask “What is the market offering now?”. Caregivers are curious, intelligent and have intellectual honesty.

This is particularly important because when I was in the venture capital side, the investment side, people try to sell things, people are trying to push ideas through, and people try to push it to the end and they neglect to consider the downside of the technology. Here at Cleveland Clinic you can feel that caregivers are more balanced. The innovation or improvements can only happen when you are truly honest with everybody in this process.

Q: What does innovation mean to you and what advice would you give to potential innovators?

A: Innovation is really positive change, especially changes to something that we may take for granted for decades.

My advice: don’t settle. Look for ways that technologies can be made better, and not just accept them as they are. There’s always room to improve, especially if you’re looking. If you have that mindset, you’re going to see all the opportunities around you.

I’m originally from China and my parents are still there but it’s not inconvenient to give them a video call. Whenever you think about today’s life, you can become excited about the innovation all around that did not exist 10 years before. That’s because someone innovative decided to push forward and look for how to do it better. This is the best way to take care of patients – to have this mindset of transformation.