5 Steps to Creating a Culture of Innovation

5 Steps to Creating a Culture of Innovation

In order for healthcare systems to remain relevant and prepare for the future, they must intentionally encourage a spirit of innovation. But what does this mean?

In part, leaders will have to reimagine their current roles and practice the transformation they preach. These leaders will have both deep expertise and immense imagination; will know which rules to break and which to uphold; and will ready to roll up their own sleeves and push the healthcare industry into the future.

Here are five ways to foster innovation in an organization of any size:

  1. Reframe the Problem
    It's easy to misdiagnose problems, so when faced with a challenge, it's important to ask a lot of questions — particularly "why?"
  2. Take a Human-Centered Approach
    The human-centered approach begins by observing behavior to uncover a patient's needs and desires — because what people say they need and what they really need is often different.
  3. A Design-Thinking Platform
    Design thinking is a creative process to develop solutions that balance human needs, form, function and cost. Analogous thinking, for example, allows organizations to learn from successes (and failures) of other industries and consider how they might be applied elsewhere.
  4. Prototype and Pivot Rapidly
    Investing massive effort into developing the perfect implementation plan is not advised. Instead, invest the minimum that allows you to iteratively improve the concept and generate new ideas.
  5. Leading Change
    The co-creation process benefits not only from the diversity of opinion, but because it emboldens all those involved to act as ambassadors for change.

Embracing the realities of the future requires leaders who possess both deep expertise and immense imagination; who know which rules to break and which to uphold; who are ready to push the boundaries and lead the healthcare industry into the future — but who know that it will require some rolled up sleeves.

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