Promoting Internal Innovation to Drive Healthcare Efficiency

The following is a guest blog post by Peyman S. Zand, Partner, Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco Company.

Technical innovation in healthcare has historically been viewed through the lens of disruption. As tech adoption in the industry matures, perceptions on the origin of innovation are evolving as well. Healthcare leadership teams are increasingly leaning on feedback from the front lines of care delivery to identify ways to eliminate waste and drive greater efficiency. Rather than leaving innovation up to third parties, many health organizations are formalizing programs to advance innovation within their own facilities.

There are two schools of thought on healthcare innovation. Some argue that the market’s unique challenges can only be understood by those in the field, leaving outside influencers destined to fail. Others view innovation success in outside markets as an opportunity for healthcare stakeholders to learn from the wins and losses of more technically progressive industries. By mimicking other industries’ approach to promoting innovation (as opposed to their byproducts) in our hospitals and health systems, healthcare can draw from the best of both worlds. What we know is that the process in which innovation is adopted is very similar in all industries. However, the types of innovations and specific models can and should be tailored to the healthcare industry.

Innovation in Healthcare: Three Examples at a  Glance

There are several examples of health organizations successfully forging a path to institutionalized innovation. University of Pittsburg Medical Center (UPMC), Intermountain Healthcare and Mayo Clinic have pioneered innovation programs that merge internal clinical expertise with technical innovators from vertical markets in and outside healthcare. This article highlights some of the ways these progressive organizations have achieved success.

Innovation at UPMC

UPMC Enterprises boasts a 200-person staff managed by top provider and payer executives at UPMC. The innovation team is presently engaged in more than a dozen commercial partnerships, including support for Vivify Health’s chronic care telehealth solutions, medCPU’s real-time decision support solutions and Health Catalyst’s data warehousing and analytics solutions. Each project is focused on the goal of improving patient outcomes. The innovation group was recently rumored to be partnering with Microsoft on machine learning initiatives and the results may have a profound impact on how we use technology in care delivery.

UPMC Enterprises supports entrepreneurs—both internal individuals and established companies—with capital, technical resources, partner networks, recruiting and marketing assistance to support innovation. Dedicated focus in the following areas lends structure to the innovation program:

  • Translational science
  • Improving outcomes
  • Infrastructure and efficiency
  • Consumer engagement

All profits generated from investments are reinvested to support further research and innovation.

Innovation at Intermountain Healthcare

Like UPMC, Intermountain’s Healthcare Transformation Lab supports innovation in the areas of telehealth and natural language processing (NLP), among others. Like most providers, one of Intermountain’s primary goals is controlling costs. The group’s self-developed NLP program is designed to help identify high-risk patients ahead of catastrophic events using data stored in free-text documents. Telehealth innovations let patients self-triage to the right level of care to incentivize use of the least expensive form of care available. Intermountain’s ProComp solution offers its providers on-the-spot transparency about the cost of instruments, drugs and devices they use. That innovation alone net the health system roughly $80 million in reduced costs between 2013 and 2015.

Most of Intermountain’s innovation initiatives are physician led or co-led. The program strives for small innovations in day-to-day work, supported by a suite of innovation support services and resource centers. Selected innovations from outside startups are supported by the company’s Healthbox Accelerator program involvement, while internal innovations are managed by the Intermountain Foundry. Intermountain offers online innovation idea submissions to promote easy participation. The health organization’s $35 million Innovation Fund supports innovations through formalized investment criteria and trustee governance resources. It is important to note that Intermountain Healthcare is interested in all aspects of innovation including supply chain and other non-clinical related projects.

Innovation at Mayo Clinic

Mayo Clinic’s Center for Innovation (CFI) brings in innovation best practices from both healthcare and non-healthcare backgrounds to drive new ideas. The innovation team’s external advisory council is comprised of both designers and physicians to drive innovation and efficiency in care delivery. The CFI features a Multidisciplinary Design Clinic that invites patients into the innovation process as well.

CFI staff found it was essential to show physicians data that demonstrated known problems and how proposed innovations could make a difference to their patients. They emphasize temporary changes, or “rapid prototyping,” to garner physician buy-in. Mayo’s CFI promotes employee involvement in innovative design through its Culture & Competency of Innovation platform, which features weekly meetings, institution-wide classes, lunch discussion groups and an annual symposium. Mayo’s innovation efforts include these additional physician-led platforms:

  • Mayo Clinic Connection—supporting shared physician experience
  • Prediction and Prevention
  • Wellness—promoting patient education
  • Destination Mayo Clinic—focused on improving patient experience

While these innovation examples represent large healthcare organizations, fostering innovation does not require a big budget. Mayo Clinic’s “think big, start small, move fast” approach to innovation illustrates a common thread among successful innovation programs. Here are practical strategies to advance innovation in healthcare, regardless of organizational size or budget.

Four Steps to Implementing an Innovation Program in Your Organization

Innovation doesn’t have to be grandiose or expensive. Organizations can start small. Begin by opening a companywide dialogue on innovation and launching a simple, online idea submission process to engage personnel in your organization. The most important part of this process is educating your teams to understand how to evaluate new innovations against a relatively pre-defined set of criteria.  For example, are you trying to improve patient safety, quality of care, reduce cost, increase patient or physician satisfaction, etc.

Another key element of successful innovation is encouraging collaboration and participation across a wide variety of stakeholders. Cross-functional teams bring multifaceted perspectives to the problem-solving process. Strive for incremental gains in facilitating opportunities for cross-department collaboration in your organization. This is particularly important for the implementation step.

Measure success using performance metrics where clinical efficiencies are concerned. Physician satisfaction, while difficult to quantify, can also pose big wins. You can expect some failures, but stack the odds by learning from other departments, organizations and industries to avoid making the same mistakes.

To work, innovation must happen often and organically. Dedicate funding, establish cross-department teams and build a formal process for vetting internal ideas. Consider offering staff incentives to drive engagement. Not all ideas will succeed. Identify metrics that will help determine ROI (not all ROIs are measured in dollars) on pilot programs so you can weed out initiatives that aren’t delivering early on to protect resources. Also, keep in mind that you can improve these innovations at each iteration.  Make the process iterative and roll out the initiatives quickly. If it fails, shut the process down quickly and move on. If it is successful, improve it for the next iteration and scale it quickly to maximize the benefits.

Whether you’re cross-pollinating internal teams to promote innovation, building partnerships with other organizations or leveraging technology to better connect providers and patients, healthcare’s ability to successfully collaborate is vital to advancing innovation in healthcare.

About Peyman S. Zand
Peyman S. Zand is a Partner at Pivot Point Consulting, a Vaco company, where he is responsible for strategic services solving healthcare clients’ complex challenges. Currently serving as interim regional CIO for Tenet Healthcare, Zand was previously a member of the University of North Carolina Healthcare System, leading Strategy, Governance, and Program/Project Management. He oversaw major initiatives including system-wide EHR implementation, regulatory programs, and physician practice rollouts. Prior to UNC, Zand formed the Applied Vision Group, a firm dedicated to assisting healthcare organizations with strategic planning, governance, and program and project management for key initiatives.

Zand holds a Bachelor’s of Science in Computational Mathematics and Engineering from Michigan State University, and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Michigan.

   

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