Seattle Art and Health Care Innovation

We took a family vacation to Seattle a couple of weeks ago and had a wonderful time. The weather was typical northwest conditions; a little rain, some sun, and mild temperatures. It was good enough to make our way around on foot and see the sights. There are two events that stand out for me, making me return to thinking about them as I reentered work.

Shortly after arriving in Seattle we went to the Seattle Art Museum for a special exhibit, Elles: Women from the Centre Pompidou. Contemporary women artists are highlighted in a variety of mediums, such as film, soft sculpture, painting, plastics, print, and metal. As is typical for me in a contemporary art museum, some of the work I liked a lot and others I wonder how it found its way to such an exhibit. Yet all of them are on display, open for evaluation, even from those of us who know very little about the creation, value, and long term benefit. One purpose of art is to evoke a reaction or emotion. It touches us in some way and possibly makes us look at the world differently because of it. Two pieces of art from that visit continue to touch my thoughts. One was a short film by Martha Rosler. It is a black and white film of the artist taking the audience through kitchen tools. The film is a satire; funny and disturbing at the same time. The second artwork that I keep revisiting was a soft sculpture of tentacles by Yayoi Kusama. You can see some of her work including the tentacles here. It reminds me of sea creatures, both beautiful and deadly.

The second event in Seattle that stands out for me is the literature crawl. This occurrence was inspired by a similar literature crawl in San Francisco. Local authors read their work in small and large venues across the city. We made it to three of them, limited to places we could reach by walking. The works ranged from heart wrenching to hilarious. Some were polished and fine tuned, others might have been written that morning. It was a marvelous variety and a quick taste of the local writers' scene.

Revisiting the pieces of art and readings by the authors has led me to consider the cultivation of new and innovative ideas in health care. It seems we see very little of the edgy and thought challenging solutions. There are health innovation conferences here, here, and here. Grants and recognition awards are given for innovation by CMS, Microsoft, and others. Despite trying to stay current on trends and changes, little makes it to a public stage. I have a Google search set up to check for new additions to the internet using health care and innovation. A new entry comes up once a week, at the most. I have to believe more is occurring that just once a week. How do we get exposed to these new ideas? Being around creativity simulates new ideas and unexpected connections. What would an exhibit of health care ideas look like? How about a literature crawl on health care? If consumers who knew little about health care delivery could walk around and react to the ideas, would the ideas change? Would health care providers get support in ways they did not expect? Like the revolutionary leader who puts forward unwelcome ideas, would others rally to find solutions? I wonder ...