In the face of a drastically changing healthcare arena, hospitals and healthcare organization are forced to roll with the punches and find new, better ways of tackling old issues. By bringing in fresh, new ideas and inspiration from places outside the healthcare bubble, hospitals can implement innovations that will yield results for both patients and the organization, said Mike Wagner in a post for the Harvard Business Review Blog Network.
Importing new knowledge is key, according to Wagner, executive director at The Advisory Board Company. Take a page out of Memorial Hospital in South Bend, Ind.'s book and develop creative approaches and draw from new ideas outside of the healthcare world. Memorial Hospital sends staff members to visit businesses in other industries to pull the best and most innovative ideas to recreate at the hospital, he said.
To find inspiration for streamlining efficiency and productivity, some hospitals are turning to architecture influences to find better design for their facilities, FierceHealthcare previously reported.
The Cleveland Clinic is also a model for innovation in the industry, filing more than 1,600 patents, obtaining more than 400 active licenses, establishing 57 spin-off companies, creating almost 1,000 jobs and landing nearly $700 million in grant money since founding Cleveland Clinic Innovations in 2000, according to Healthcare IT News.
"Innovation is a core value of the Cleveland Clinic, and it always has been," Cleveland Clinic's Chief Information Officer C. Martin Harris told Healthcare IT News. "What we have done is to drive a number of programs to really make sure we do not lose the focus on the importance of innovations."
Clinicians are given days off specifically dedicated to investigating something intriguing that could benefit the organization, bringing back at least one idea to the group and engaging in a conversation about it, Harris said. The innovation center then identifies ideas that have potential to work on a larger scale, and positively impact the organization.
To learn more:
- read Harvard Business Review Blog Networks article
- check out Healthcare IT News' report
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