Influencing Innovation

Bonnie Clipper DNP, RN, MA, MBA, CENP, FACHE. CTONE President.

Nurse leaders are actively involved in transforming health care and health care policy while working towards the goals of improving patient outcomes, reducing the cost of care and improving access to care. While nurse leaders acknowledge the need for dramatic change in order to achieve these goals, their organizations are often unable to build cultures that can nurture and support the magnitude of change necessary. This kind of change can happen through innovation and utilizing unique approaches to today’s dynamic health care environment.

While innovation may not be as difficult as we think, it is a challenge. Innovation can include putting new ideas to use or incorporating existing ideas into practice differently (Melnyk & Davidson, 2009). However, creating a culture of innovation is much more demanding. One reason for this may be that nurse leaders, typically do not receive formal education on leading with an innovative bias. Influencing innovation has become a new leadership competency. As innovation becomes increasingly more important, nurse leaders should be prepared to lead in a manner that nurtures and supports innovation within their own organization. Tolerance of risk and failure is another reason that innovation is an uphill climb in health care (Herzlinger, 2006).

Fostering innovation does not mean that yet another "initiative" needs to be developed. Building a culture of innovation can coexist with the current performance improvement methodology whether it is Six Sigma, LEAN or PDSA, to name a few. Developing an organizational mindset towards innovation encourages creativity and different approaches that are not the norms, or may even have been "shot down" in the past. Innovation is the opportunity for divergent thinking and doing things much different than in the past.

Ways for Nurse Leaders to Influence Innovation:

Communicate to staff that the "current way" that things are done isn’t the only way that things can be done. Openly admitting that everything is up for improvement can spur ideas from staff who had been sitting on their own innovations due to the pressure to maintain the status quo. The is often the "this is how we do it here" mentality. Let staff know innovations are welcome.
Encourage collaboration by including all clinical disciplines in shared government or unit councils. Collaboration through cross functional teams or interdisciplinary groups is a simple way to create innovation and promote creative thinking.
Recognize and celebrate innovation by rewarding staff who develop innovative ideas that are implemented in the organization. Adopt Innovation Challenges to encourage broad participation and help to develop an organizational tolerance of failure.
Incorporate front line staff in performance improvement and LEAN activities to gain their perspective. Excluding direct care givers from resolving patient care challenges can often back-fire as leaders work to solve the problems without knowing all of the details that front line staff are aware of.
Listen to staff who share their thoughts and ideas before determining that their solutions won’t work. In resource strapped organizations it may be tough, however allowing staff to express their ideas may lead to breakthrough ideas that are worth piloting.
Educate staff on ways to increase creativity by using simple exercises such as Draw Toast before tackling unit/organizational challenges (gamestorming.com. 2015). Allow active brainstorming before working towards problem resolution.

There are several ways that nurse leaders can span their boundaries to influence innovation. Starting small and creating a culture that will nurture and sustain innovation is a safe way to ensure that the organization will build an environment where innovation can continue to grow and thrive. Through innovation and creativity will come the changes necessary to transform our health care system and attain our goals of improving care, reducing costs and improving access.

References

Draw Toast (2015). Accessed at http://gamestorming.com/core-games/draw-toast/ accessed on December 9, 2016.

Herzlinger, R.E. (2006). Why Innovation in Health Care is so Hard. Harvard Business Review. Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2006/05/why-innovation-in-health-care-is-so-hard.

Melnyk, B.M., Davidson, S. (2009). Creating a Culture of Innovation in Nursing Education Through Shared Vision, Leadership, Interdisciplinary Partnerships and Positive Deviance. Nursing Administration Quarterly. Vol. 33 (4), pp. 288-295.