Innovation in Action

A Practical Guide for Healthcare Teams

D. Scott Endsley

• Publisher: BMJ Books
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781444330571
• eBook ISBN: 9781444359558
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Medicine
• Subtopic: Medical Theory, Practice & Reference

It is now recognized that innovation in healthcare needs to be a primary strategy for dealing with the challenges of pressure from consumers and the effort to control costs.This practical guide describes key issues surrounding innovation, such as the barriers to innovation in healthcare, the opportunities of working across boundaries in open innovation, and the process and tools of exploring the innovation approach.

The highly-regarded author follows a five-stage process model that presents a systematic base for understanding, and -- more importantly -- performing innovation work:

1. Defining the innovation design challenge

2. The process and tools of exploring the innovation

3. Generating innovative ideas

4. Prototyping and testing innovations

5. Creating a diffusion plan

This user-friendly guide is ideal for all healthcare professionals and healthcare teams, both in training and in practice.

CHAPTER 1
Introduction to innovation

Welcome to Innovation in Action, a guidebook designed to provide insight, concepts, and tools for creating and testing new ideas (or redesigned old ideas) for healthcare. It is intended to help its users transform the practices and products that they use in their everyday delivery of healthcare and create value in the systems in which they work.

---

Tips for Innovation

1. Aim for simplicity
2. Think in verbs, not nouns
3. Build on ideas of others
4. Create an idea “treasure box”
5. Think both spatial as well as process change
6. Brainstorm often
7. Bring people together

---

What is innovation?

Innovation is “the first, practical, concrete implementation of an idea done in a way that brings broad-based, extrinsic recognition to an individual or organization.”¹ Innovation goes beyond creativity, which is the production of ideas, to focus on implementation of ideas that bring value to individuals and organizations. It is a rare that innovations comes as “a bolt out of the blue” but more commonly, as Peter Drucker notes, are the result of “a conscious, purposeful search for innovation opportunities.”² He emphasizes that innovation is a “systematic practice” that draws insights and ideas from interdisciplinary groups who see the innovation challenge from multiple perspectives. Unlike invention, innovation is first and foremost, a value-driven team set of processes with focused objectives.

---

Building Innovation into Health Systems: Memorial Hospital and Health System. Memorial Hospital and Health Systems in South Bend, IN (www.qualityoflife.org), through senior leadership recognized that they were afflicted by a “creeping sameness,” faced a war for talent, and were financially challenged by local competitors that were eating at their margins. Bringing innovation into their business model allowed them to all three of these. Leadership organized “innovisits” to regional organizations in and outside of healthcare recognized for their innovation (e.g., Proctor & Gamble), established board level policies that set expectations for innovation throughout the organization, created a system training program (Wizards College) in innovation for all level of staff, built innovation into job descriptions, and provided support through “idea propulsion labs” where “WoW projects were worked on.” Memorial tracks costs and return on investments (ROI) for all innovation projects as a board expectation. ROI estimates range from 1.2 to 3.0 (120–300% return).

---

So why innovation? It is now acknowledged that the quality of healthcare in United States is average at best. For instance, a study by RAND³ suggests that adults are receiving only 54.9% of recommended care (prevention, acute care, chronic services). “The need for change” as suggested by the RAND report “leads directly to the need for ideas for change.”⁴

Innovation is distinctly different from invention—that is, the creation of something new. Innovation on the other hand requires that the new idea or creation is used and provides value to the users. It is fundamentally a team sport that involves people and ideas from multiple disciplines focused on an aim. As Peter Drucker has described it, innovation is a true discipline. Becoming an effective practitioner of innovation takes practice. As described by Peter Denning,⁵ there are eight foundational practices for an innovator.

• Awareness: Ability to perceive opportunities, distinguishing them from your own agenda, ability to overcome cognitive blindness
• Focus and persistence: Ability to maintain attention on innovation challenge amidst chaos and obstacles
• Listening and synthesizing: Ability to hear others ideas, needs, preferences, and to blend them together with your own to create new ideas
• Declarations: Ability to make simple, powerful, moving, eloquent statements about the future that serve as attractors for others
• Destiny: A sense of the future and of possibilities that is powered by a larger purpose
• Offers: Bring value to your customers and stakeholders. Ability to deliver with commitment to results
• Networks and allies: Ability to build and maintain productive relationships with others, especially representing different perspectives and skills
• Learning: Constantly seeking new ideas, skills, and experiences from traditional and nontraditional sources; a mindset of inquiry

Beyond the distinction between innovation and invention, there are four myths about innovation of which to remain aware. These include (a) innovations must be big—often the most successful innovations are small, (b) innovations are the work of a gifted few—anyone can learn the skills and practice of innovation, (c) innovations are about new ideas—innovations are often old ideas in new uses or new audiences, and (d) innovations are only applicable to commercial markets—innovations are applicable in all settings (business, education, government, nonprofit, etc.).

Why is innovation so hard in healthcare

The United States spends over $26 billion on research and development in healthcare, second only to defense research and development.^6,7 Yet examples of disastrous failures abound in healthcare—ranging from the various efforts to use managed care methods to manage costs, stock market losses of biotech start-ups, and the painful...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Table of Contents
• Title
• Copyright
• Foreword
• Chapter 1: Introduction to Innovation
• Chapter 2: Defining the Innovation Challenge
• Chapter 3: The Deep Dive
• Chapter 4: Generating Innovative Ideas
• Chapter 5: Prototyping and Testing Ideas
• Chapter 6: Creating Your Diffusion Plan
• Appendix
• Index
• End User License Agreement