Space medicine framework can redefine value - based care strategy

mobihealthnews.com · Feb 23, 2026 · Collected from GDELT

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Shannon Kennedy, healthcare innovation, technology chair and senior executive fellow at The Digital Economist, previews her upcoming talk at the 2026 HIMSS Global Health Conference & Exposition in March, where she will explain how the restrictions of space medicine, such as limited supplies, delayed communication and no room for error, can offer a powerful lens for rethinking value-based care. MobiHealthNews: How can the extreme constraints of space medicine influence value-based care?Shannon Kennedy: When a micrometeorite breaches a Mars habitat injuring four crew members, and you have one reusable trauma kit, one person with basic first-aid training and a 20-minute delay before Earth guidance arrives, every decision saves one life while straining another system. That is value-based care stripped to its most essential form. Space medicine operates under the ultimate fixed budget: no resupply, no specialists on site, no do-overs. What makes this so exciting for healthcare leaders is that this extreme lens is not hypothetical. It is an actual reality and experiment playing out before our eyes right now, and the rapid advancement of technologies born from these constraints is bringing incredible breakthroughs out of the box for what is possible in care delivery. Our workshop introduces the "Orbital Quintuple Aim" framework, which gives participants a powerful new way to evaluate tradeoffs across five dimensions simultaneously, opening up possibilities that traditional frameworks were never designed to reveal.MHN: Will the discussion be interactive with participants?Kennedy: This is not a lecture. Every table becomes a spacecraft medical unit with assigned mission roles, and you do not need to be a clinical person to participate. Bringing diverse perspectives from finance, operations and technology leadership makes the exercise richer and more reflective of how real healthcare decisions get made. Teams work through structured exercises tackling scenarios like treating an asymptomatic blood clot with limited blood thinners and no reversal agents, or managing progressive vision loss across multiple crew members with limited diagnostics. Every choice protects one aim while revealing new opportunities in another. Facilitators reveal predetermined scoring weights only after all teams have committed, creating energizing moments of discovery. The workshop also brings in real-life technology solutions that are genuinely disruptive in their ability to force multiply productivity and outcomes, showing leaders what is truly possible when constraint-driven thinking meets cutting-edge innovation.MHN: What do you hope attendees learn from the discussion?Kennedy: We want attendees to experience firsthand how an extreme lens can unlock breakthrough thinking about what is possible in healthcare. The greatest successes in space medicine never came from having the best tools; they came from making the best possible decisions with what was available, and that resourcefulness is now being supercharged by rapidly advancing technologies that are redefining the art of the possible. Equally important, this exercise brings in the power of shared value thinking. In space, mission success depends on every system and every crew member working toward a common outcome, and that same connective thinking represents an enormous opportunity for healthcare leaders to discover new ways of creating value together. During the debrief, facilitators reveal patterns across teams and map them to real-world opportunities in care model design, workforce empowerment and the integration of transformative technologies. We want participants to leave inspired by what they built together and equipped to bring that shared accountability mindset back to their organizations, recognizing that it is what separates a surviving mission from a thriving one.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​Shannon Kennedy's session "Mars Mission Protocols: Reimagining Earthbound Value-Based Care" is scheduled for Thursday, March 12th, from 8:30 a.m. - 9:30 a.m. in Lido 3101A I Level 3 at the Venetian at HIMSS26 in Las Vegas.