MEZIESBLOG

INNOVATION IN HEALTHCARE MANAGEMENT

2.1 Definition and Types of Innovation in Healthcare Management

‘Innovation’ simply refers to new, better, and more effective ways of solving problems (McSherry & Douglas., 2011). The concept of innovation is widely used in business management, technology and marketing domains, and the term is mostly used to describe strategies, products, services, policies, systems, and internet communication technology (ICT) that provide solutions to existing organizational problems (Wutzke et al., 2016). Thus, ‘innovation’ in healthcare management is associated with new ideas, process and technology adapted to solve health care problems. But many researchers have viewed the concept from different perspectives because recent developments in diagnostic and therapeutic options—among other care delivery models—have led to an outburst of innovations designed to improve quality of life and life expectancy (Omachonu & Einspruch., 2010). For example, innovation can be viewed from a social perspective if the aim is to solve social issues such as poverty, education, health, and other of high-impact problems that negatively affect human development through system-level changes (Schweitzer et al., 2015).

The U.S. Department of Commerce Advisory Committee on Measuring Innovation in the 21st Century Economy defined innovation as the act of ‘designing, inventing, developing and/or implementing new or modified products, services, processes, organizational structures, systems, or business models in order to create new value for stakeholders/customers and increase profit for the organization.’ The World Health Organization (WHO) (2016) views ‘health innovation’ as a strategy to enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, safety, quality, sustainability, and affordability of health care. Viewed comprehensively, this definition includes implementation of new health policies, practices, systems, products/services, technologies, and optimized delivery methods that guarantee provision of quality, accessible and cheap health care services (Assink., 2006; Länsisalmi et al., 2006; Langley et al., 2009; Hemphälä & Magnusson., 2012).

Basically, innovation is focused on improving work process and systems to deliver quality services to customers. Innovation in healthcare management can also mean new ways of building and sustaining relationship with care users or workable approaches adapted to market healthcare products and services (Omachonu & Einspruch., 2010). But despite the interrelatedness of definitions, modern-day healthcare organizations are facing unprecedented challenges to improve quality of care, eliminate waste of human and material resources, reduce harm to health care workers and care users, improve access to care and work tools, as well as increase efficiency and lower costs for both health providers and care users. Innovation has therefore taken centre stage in healthcare management once again (Greenhalgh et al., 2004). The major problem is there is no clear definition of innovation in healthcare management due to lack of consensus—and this is an obstacle to adapting innovation in clinical practices, policymaking, and primary care delivery. The concept of innovation has been frequently misconstrued and inappropriately used in many countries to describe different developments within healthcare (Rogers., 2003; Dubé et al., 2014; Wu et al., 2019).