Driving Innovations in Health Service

Delivery: Key ConceptsPaul Plsek

Consultant in Innovation and Complex Systems

DirectedCreativity.comAtlanta, GA

Presented at AHRQ Annual ConferenceSeptember 27, 2007

Why Focus on Innovation?

• Key to long-term success in other industries• Good innovation processes exist in medical,

surgical, pharmaceutical, diagnostic, device and computer technology, but…

• …we routinely take 21st century technology and embed it in service delivery processes that are often conceptually rooted in the 1970s

“The challenge is to bring the full potential benefit of effective health care to all… this challenge demands a readiness to think in radically new ways about how to deliver health care services.” Institute of Medicine

“Crossing the Quality Chasm”

What Do We MeanBy “Innovation”?

• Key themes from the literature• Novel idea• Context dependent• Successful translation to reality

(i.e., creates real and substantial value in some sense)

• For example…• “Innovation refers to the implementation of new

or altered products, services, processes, systems, organizational structures, or business models as a means of improving one or more domains of health care quality.” (From the AHRQ Innovation Exchange website)

Some Principles of Innovation

• Organizational culture matters • Need to challenge current ways of

thinking, tacit rules and assumptions• Practice of attention, escape and

movement• Cycles of divergent & convergent

thinking• Gradual application of judgment

• stage-gate or innovation-funnel concept

Typical Process for Innovation

Preparation

IdeaGeneration

Selection & Development

Testing & Evaluation

ImplementationSustain & Spread

What are the key dimensions of a organizational culture of innovation?

• Risk taking

• Resources

• Widely shared information

• Specific targets

• Tools and techniques

• Rewards systems

• Relationships