Insights from health system leaders on aligning, structuring, and empowering innovation within their organizations.
If you’ve ever feared ‘innovation’ risks becoming a nebulous, buzzy catchall, take note! A new survey of health system leaders found two-thirds of health systems surveyed have an internal, system-wide definition for ‘innovation.’ The findings suggest many health systems view the genesis of innovation as problem-solving; its core mandate to deliver value; and its roots entrenched in technology.
The mandate to deliver value resonates with UPMC Enterprises Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Adam Berger, PhD. “At UPMC Enterprises, we use a rigorous process for evaluating new opportunities. We don’t hit ‘go’ on a new project until we have buy-in from the key stakeholders: not just technology, but finance, clinical, operations, and so on. Yes, it’s a little more work up front, but it dials down the overall project risk dramatically.”
Many health system definitions of innovation are saddled to measurable outcomes, which cues the top driver of innovation. According to C-suite survey respondents, the top driver of innovation at their organizations is additional revenue generation. The top functional focus areas for innovation were identified as access, IT/data analytics, and patient/consumer engagement, and the top criteria for innovation decision-making was alignment with stated organizational goals.
Those are among key findings from “Trends for Scaling Innovation in Health Care,” a new report released by the Center for Connected Medicine (CCM), in partnership with The Health Management Academy (The Academy), that focuses on innovation at health systems. The findings are based on quantitative and qualitative surveys of C-suite executives at nearly 30 U.S. health systems. UPMC Enterprises is a partner at the CCM, along with Nokia and GE Healthcare. For objectivity, UPMC did not participate in the survey, but UPMC Enterprises President Tal Heppenstall and UPMC Enterprises CTO Dr. Berger shared their perspectives on the key findings at events hosted by The Academy earlier this spring.
“Innovation is ingrained in the UPMC culture. It’s part of our “genetic code,” and is expected of every employee, in every department, at every hospital,” said Heppenstall. “We also have a business unit dedicated to innovation, and our structure is unique—UPMC Enterprises differs from the majority of health systems in that we fill the role of internally-focused health system innovation arm, and we marry that with venture capital and services akin to digital health incubators.”
Survey findings indicate health system organizational structure and process play a role in efficient scaling and implementation of innovation across health systems. Of the one-third of health systems reporting that they can implement and scale innovation “somewhat quickly,” most have a formal process in place for doing so. Health systems with defined innovation departments are more likely to have a formal process for scaling innovation than those without a defined innovation department, and yet fewer than half of health systems have these infrastructures in place.
“A benefit to having a distinct innovation and commercialization department is consolidation of expertise. UPMC Enterprises has processes, pathways, relationships, and historical and practical knowledge that support our execution of innovation at UPMC,” said Heppenstall. “But innovation cannot succeed in a vacuum. System-wide commitment and corporate culture are paramount, and that environment is the bedrock that permits our department to successfully scale and invest in innovation at UPMC.”
To view the key findings, which include six actions for scaling innovation gleaned from the surveys, read the report. To hear innovation leaders from Duke, Ochsner, UPMC, and Yale discuss how their organizations stand up innovation, and react to key survey findings, register for the CCM’s upcoming webinar ‘Accelerating Innovation in Health Care: How top health systems build and implement innovation‘.
