health innovation

Please comment on the discussion post of my classmate. Topic is health innovation:

Innovation is one of those buzzwords that gets used so often that it can sometimes lose its importance. Innovation does not mean that the iPhone 14 is basically the iPhone 1 but is a little bit smaller, has a better camera, and has a slightly different UX. It’s the difference between a flip phone and the first iPhone. Innovation is the difference between paper charting and the EMR. Between having to do manual chart review for a research project and being able to write a SQL query that will export the requested fields from the EMR into an excel spreadsheet (or even better R). Those are examples of what I think of when I think of innovation. One of my favorite books is called Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries (Bahcall, 2019). The book talks about what enables some companies to innovation while other previously innovative companies stop innovating and stagnate. One of the more famous stories in the book is about Polaroid and how they invented a new molecule to produce instant prints, among countless other innovations (Bahcall, 2019). However, even though the first digital camera appeared in the 1970’s Polaroid did not produce their first digital camera until 1996 (Bahcall, 2019).

I think the most important ingredient to create a culture of embracing change and continuous learning. This applies even more to healthcare IT. Both the world of healthcare and IT are changing incredibly quickly, and an organization needs to be willing to spend time and effort on training and learning to be able to innovate. To be able to plan for innovation, organizations need to empower their teams to create solutions to their problems and not create a culture of accepting the status quo. This culture of innovation was one of my major take aways from the Yuan et al (2019) paper discussing Lockheed Martin’s Advanced Development Program, better known as the Skunk Works. The authors specifically referenced this stating, “the greater the bureaucracy, the slower the progress” (Yuan, et al., 2019).

References

Bahcall, S. (2019). Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas That Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries. St. Martin’s Press. New York, New York.

Yuan, J. J., Paganelli, W. C., & Jacques, P. S. (2019). IT-driven clinical improvement processes: The skunkworks. International anesthesiology clinics, 57(1), 45–62. https://doi.org/10.1097/AIA.0000000000000213

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