Over the past several years we have been studying the most important trends in the health care market, and tracking the most promising innovations that respond to them. While many institutions have one or a few innovative efforts underway, there is much to gain from taking a broader view and learning from others.

Project Kitty Hawk, named for the dunes in North Carolina where the Wright brothers first flew their airplane, is an effort to work together with the most innovative health systems and thinkers in and outside of the industry to share perspectives on these challenges and innovations. The goal is not to advocate any particular technology, product, or response, but rather to provide participants with new ideas, tools, and ways of thinking to decide themselves what might be relevant for their institution.

We will focus this roundtable on innovations in ambulatory care, as this is a large and growing part of any health system's business, and is perhaps most at risk with the forces of consumerism and retail health. We will begin with a two day meeting in Boston in June 2006 to provide an overview of the challenges, a framework for the innovations, and begin to explore the most promising of them. Then over the course of the next 6 months we will host weekly conference calls with some of the innovators themselves to learn more about what they are doing. We also will send one of our senior faculty onsite to each participant to expose a larger group to this material, and provide the team with written briefings and background materials. Finally we will close the roundtable in January 2007 with a leadership summit to share larger lessons and discuss how to move forward individually and collectively.