From translational research to open technology innovation systems

Nurturing innovative culture in a healthcare organisation - Lessons from a Swedish case study

PURPOSE

Healthcare organisations are often described as less innovative than other organisations, since organisational culture works against innovations. In this paper, the authors ask whether it has to be that way or whether is possible to nurture an innovative culture in a healthcare organisation. The aim of this paper is to describe and analyse nurturing an innovative culture within a healthcare organisation and how culture can support innovations in such a healthcare organisation.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

Based on a qualitative case study of a healthcare unit that changed, within a few years, from having no innovations to repeatedly generating innovations, the authors describe important aspects of how innovative culture can be nurtured in healthcare. Data were analysed using inductive and deductive analysis steps.

FINDINGS

The study shows that it is possible to nurture an innovative culture in a healthcare organisation. Relationships and competences beyond healthcare, empowering structures and signalling the importance of innovation work with resources all proved to be important. All are aspects that a manager can influence. In this case, the manager's role in nurturing innovative culture was very important.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

This study highlights that an innovative culture can be nurtured in healthcare organisations and that managers can play a key role in such a process.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

The paper describes and analyses an innovative culture in a healthcare unit and identifies important conditions and strategies for nurturing innovative culture in healthcare organisations.

Managing interorganisational collaborations to develop medical technologies: the contribution of interpersonal relationships

The development of medical technologies that effectively meet clinical and patient needs increasingly relies upon collaborative working between clinicians, businesses and universities. While this "open" innovation process may provide access to additional resources, knowledge, and expertise the process is not frictionless. At the personal level, individuals may have different ways of working and incentives and at the organisational level, partners may have their own cultures and processes. Thus, interorganisational collaboration is not necessarily a panacea, but has advantages and disadvantages. The challenges are somewhat heightened in the MedTech sector where collaborative working cuts across established professional boundaries, brings together diverse knowledge from an array of disciplines, and often disrupts existing medical practice. Given these factors, this article presents a review of the extant management literature examining the complexities within multi-party collaboration and ways to drive these partnerships forwards. The article emphasises the critical value of interpersonal relationships within collaborations and offers means of strengthening them.

Using systems thinking to increase understanding of the innovation system of healthcare organisations

PURPOSE

This paper applies systems thinking modelling to enhance the dynamic understanding of how to nurture an innovative culture in healthcare organisations to develop the innovation system in practice and speed up the innovative work. The model aims to provide a holistic view of a studied healthcare organisation's innovation processes, ranging from managerial values to its manifestation in improved results.

DESIGN/METHODOLOGY/APPROACH

The study is based on empirical material from a healthcare unit that, within a few years, changed from having no innovations to repeatedly generating innovations. The study uses the modelling language of causal loop diagrams (CLDs) in the system dynamics methodology to identify the key important aspects found in the empirical material.

FINDINGS

The proposed model, based on the stories of the interviewees, explores the dynamics of inertia when nurturing an innovative culture, identifying delays attributed to the internal change processes and system relationships. These findings underscored the need for perseverance when developing an innovative culture in the entrepreneurial phases.

PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS

The approach of using systems thinking to make empirical healthcare research results more tangible through the visual notations of CLDs and mental simulations is believed to support exploring complex phenomena to induce and nurture both individual and organisational learning.

ORIGINALITY/VALUE

The results from this approach provide deepened analysis and provoke the systems view to explain how the nurturing of the culture can accelerate the innovation processes, which helps practitioners and researchers to further expand their understanding of their healthcare contexts.

Engagement of older adults in regional health innovation: The ECOTECH concept mapping project

Objectives:

Regional health innovation ecosystems can activate collaboration and support planning, self-management and development and commercialization of innovations. We sought to understand how older adults and their caregivers can be meaningfully engaged in regional health innovation ecosystems focused on health and aging–related technology innovation.

Methods:

A six-phase concept mapping technique gathered data over six time points across Canada. Brainstorming conducted online and in person identified engagement ideas. Statements were sorted by similarity and rated by participants on importance and feasibility. Qualitative approaches and multidimensional scaling, hierarchical cluster analysis, descriptive statistics and t tests were used for analysis.

Results:

Sixty-two unique ideas were assembled into a seven-cluster framework of priorities for engagement in regional health innovation ecosystems including public forums, co-production and partnerships, engagement, linkage and exchange, developing cultural capacity, advocacy and investment in the ecosystem.

Conclusions:

This study identified a framework of priorities for directions and strategies for older adult and caregiver engagement in regional health innovation ecosystems. Next steps include collaborations to develop regional health innovation ecosystems that actively engage older adults and their caregivers in health and aging–related technology innovation.

Child health technology: shaping the future of paediatrics and child health and improving NHS productivity

In the last decade, technology has revolutionised the way we deliver healthcare. Smartphones, tablets, personal computers and bespoke devices have provided patients with the means to access health information, manage their healthcare and communicate with health professionals remotely. Advances in technology have the potential to change how acute and long-term conditions are diagnosed and managed and how illness is prevented using technological advances in artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality, robotics, 3D printing, new materials, biosensor technologies and data analytics. In the future, predictive analytics will help with earlier disease diagnosis in at-risk populations.Historically, development of child health innovation and technology has taken place in a relatively emergent manner with little formal coordination. The aim is to move away from the traditional approach of repurposing adult technologies to provide a large-scale and coordinated approach for the development of bespoke health technology for children that is anatomically, physiologically and developmentally appropriate, versatile and that has been designed with children and young people. The challenge for the National Health Service alongside healthcare systems across the world is to deliver increasingly complex healthcare at lower cost and with better quality of life and greater efficiency.

How Healthcare Can Refocus on Its Super-Customers (Patients, n =1) and Customers (Doctors and Nurses) by Leveraging Lessons from Amazon, Uber, and Watson

Healthcare is transforming with data-intensive omics technologies and Big Data. The "revolution" has already happened in technology, but the bottlenecks have shifted to the social domain: Who can be empowered by Big Data? Who are the users and customers? In this review and innovation field analysis, we introduce the idea of a "super-customer" versus "customer" and relate both to 21st century healthcare. A "super-customer" in healthcare is the patient, sample size of n = 1, while "customers" are the providers of healthcare (e.g., doctors and nurses). The super-customers have been patients, enabled by unprecedented social practices, such as the ability to track one's physical activities, personal genomics, patient advocacy for greater autonomy, and self-governance, to name but a few. In contrast, the originally intended customers-providers, doctors, and nurses-have relatively lagged behind. With patients as super-customers, there are valuable lessons to be learned from industry examples, such as Amazon and Uber. To offer superior quality service, healthcare organizations have to refocus on the needs, pains, and aspirations of their super-customers by enabling the customers. We propose a strategic solution to this end: the PPT-DAM (People-Process-Technology empowered by Data, Analytics, and Metrics) approach. When applied together with the classic Experiment-Execute-Evaluate iterative methodology, we suggest PPT-DAM is an extremely powerful approach to deliver quality health services to super-customers and customers. As an example, we describe the PPT-DAM implementation by the Benchmarking Improvement Program at the Seattle Children's Hospital. Finally, we forecast that cognitive systems in general and IBM Watson in particular, if properly implemented, can bring transformative and sustainable capabilities in healthcare far beyond the current ones.

Understanding healthcare innovation systems: the Stockholm region case

Purpose There is an increasing interest in understanding how innovation processes can address current challenges in healthcare. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the wider socio-economic context and conditions for such innovation processes in the Stockholm region, using the functional dynamics approach to innovation systems (ISs). Design/methodology/approach The analysis is based on triangulation using data from 16 in-depth interviews, two workshops, and additional documents. Using the functional dynamics approach, critical structural and functional components of the healthcare IS were analyzed. Findings The analysis revealed several mechanisms blocking innovation processes such as fragmentation, lack of clear leadership, as well as insufficient involvement of patients and healthcare professionals. Furthermore, innovation is expected to occur linearly as a result of research. Restrictive rules for collaboration with industry, reimbursement, and procurement mechanisms limit entrepreneurial experimentation, commercialization, and spread of innovations. Research limitations/implications In this study, the authors analyzed how certain functions of the functional dynamics approach to ISs related to each other. The authors grouped knowledge creation, resource mobilization, and legitimacy as they jointly constitute conditions for needs articulation and entrepreneurial experimentation. The economic effects of entrepreneurial experimentation and needs articulation are mainly determined by the stage of market formation and existence of positive externalities. Social implications Stronger user involvement; a joint innovation strategy for healthcare, academia, and industry; and institutional reform are necessary to remove blocking mechanisms that today prevent innovation from occurring. Originality/value This study is the first to provide an analysis of the system of innovation in healthcare using a functional dynamics approach, which has evolved as a tool for public policy making. A better understanding of ISs in general, and in healthcare in particular, may provide the basis for designing and evaluating innovation policy.