Promoting and Embedding Innovation

Attend to all aspects of the adoption process:
Previous innovation strategies have neglected
the issue of spread, sustainability and
exnovation (ie decommissioning services as
new innovations take hold). These should be
planned from inception.
Generic „factors to be considered when
spreading innovation could be captured in a
checklist or scoring system in order to ensure
adequate planning and resourcing. This would
contain questions such as:
o
o
o
o
o
Is innovation in this area a strategic
priority for the organisation
Is there a senior executive who will be
responsible for the spread
Is there a team that will take responsibility
for spread day to day
Will leadership supply the tools needed
for success
Is the innovation scalable throughout the
health economy
Ensure sufficient time:
The rationale for innovation has a number of
strands including improving productivity and
efficiency, reducing cost, increasing quality
and responsiveness, reducing variation in
practice, and increasing access to health
services. Although much of the debate has
hitherto centred on how the innovation
pathway in the NHS can be travelled more
rapidly, a more reasonable aim would be to
achieve an appropriate pace of adoption and
spread (Rye & Kimberly, 2007). Optimal
implementation timescales will vary according
to the nature of the intervention and the
context of its introduction. Rushing change can
lead to fatigue and ultimately failure
(Buchanan et al, 2005). The desire for speedy
innovation processes should also not overlook
the need to avoid diffusion beyond effective
areas (over-adoption) or adoption that creates
or exacerbates inequities of access and
outcome.
Reinforce gains:
Support and reward for successful
implementation (as well as gains in for
example joint working and leadership) will help
to create the conditions for continued diffusion.
Gains should be routinely communicated to all
stakeholders.
Draw on resources:
The importance of committing local resources
cuts across all dimensions of innovation.
Time, energy and money will be required to
incentivise and facilitate identification, adoption
and spread. Building an innovation
infrastructure requires commitment of
resources.
Tapping into national resources such as:
repositories of evidence and knowledge,
networks, training and implementation tools
will assist with locally driven innovation
projects.
Effectively manage knowledge:
An organisational knowledge management
strategy is a prerequisite of successful spread
and continuation of innovation. This should
address explicit and tacit knowledge forms.
It is imperative that benefits of innovations and
pitfalls to avoid in their diffusion are routinely
and widely communicated. One option is the
creation of an „innovation website‟ where
organisations upload short case studies of
what they are doing and how they‟re doing it.
A regional network of „innovation champions‟
from all local organisations could be set up.
Members would receive training and time to
promote innovation in their organisation and to
use the network to spread and „sell‟ best
practice.
These developments could be supplemented
by a short guide with advice on how to adopt
and spread innovation that is distributed
around the region.
39 Learning from experience