Melek Somai.

In the ever-evolving landscape of digital health, recent announcements such as OliveAI are an important anchor to review the intricacies and complexities involved in healthcare innovation.

The challenge most healthcare systems face today ranges between the duality of Innovation and Organizational Efficiency. Those two dimensions of survival are sometimes difficult to comprehend in a dynamic socio-technical space; and hence are sometimes misinterpreted as mere opposite in the way we operate healthcare. In this piece, I try to explain from my observations and using a well-known theory of Exploitation and Exploration to shed the light on a simple yet powerful idea that innovation and efficiency are equally important.

I wrote this piece during the democratic transition of Tunisia between 2011 and 2020. The piece was perhaps an attempt to raise the question of whether achieving Universal Health Coverage is within reach and a possibility to improve care.