Innovation, particularly disruptive innovation, may fall victim to innate fear of risk resulting from economic downturns experienced worldwide. Just as the stimulus package has been developed to spur consumer confidence and economic upturn, is there need for CPR for innovative thought in healthcare?
Innovation is inherent in our daily activities and functions. Based on a core definition changing your path from home to work to shorten travel time is innovation. Innovation at a higher level that results in new programs, products, or services — disruptive innovation that brings in a customer group that heretofore did not exist, requires human and financial capital.
The issue of financial capital has been discussed, forecasted, lamented, and forecasted by financial leaders worldwide. Perhaps the focus should be on the human capital.
The lack of consumer spending resulting in greater personal savings than in the past ten years and an overriding lack of confidence in the economy overall creates a sense of fear within humans. This fear is played out in relationships — professional, social, and family; it is also demonstrated in changes in the level or degree to which an individual will accept risk.
Innovation requires risk.
A change agent is consistently on the fringe. A best practice for fostering innovation is a hardwired process to assess an idea. Toyota is famous for reviewing every idea that comes forward from its employees. Many hospitals offer a suggestion box or it more current equivalent, a suggestion blog or email box in an effort to stimulate thought and offer a conduit between idea and action. Some systems support this effort with financial rewards – percentage of savings or one time gift; other systems place senior leaders in a position to review these ideas and determine which and when an idea germinates into an innovation.
The role of the champion in this process is key. We have learned the value of patient navigators in emergency departments, breast cancer services, and pediatric services. The care navigator is ombudsman and personal wikipedia all in one. Research indicates improved patient satisfaction and in some cases reduced cost when a navigator is in place. If innovation is treated as a living organism that requires nourishment and protection to grow, it is the role of the organizational champion to do so.
If the champion is concerned for the job and this trickles down the organization hierarchy what is the probability that a disruptive innovation will surface at all within the system or organization?
T.S. Eliot once said, “We had the experience but missed the meaning.” Without nurturing innovative concepts and people, the experience of innovative thought will disappear and the result of the recession of 2008 will be felt for a generation to come.
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