Mapping the Hospital Innovation Ecosystem
Industry: Healthcare / Children's Hospital
Project: Freelance Consulting Project - 2021
Role: Independent Consultant
Skills: Market Research, User Interviews, Ideation Workshops, Process & Tool Design, Cross-Functional Collaboration
Hospitals and healthcare systems suffer from being incredibly siloed. This makes it difficult to share knowledge across departments and collaborate effectively, leading to either duplication of work and/or missed opportunities for innovation. My client, a large children's hospital, asked me to help them understand the existing innovation ecosystem and propose a more generalizable process to improve innovation across departments, from initial idea generation to solution scaling.
Research
Discovery Education
Conducted current state evaluation to understand what work had been completed thus far, as well as the existing tools and intake processes being used by all innovation-related teams at the hospital.
Market Research, Surveys, User Interviews
Conducted market research to identify best practices for rapid innovation within healthcare (or similar industries). Facilitated 10 user interviews, conducted observational research, and sent surveys to all innovation hubs.
Design
Ideation Workshops
Completed evaluation and synthesis of themes from research. Identified 5 main challenges: manual process, lack of data aggregation, no access for outside users, difficulty customizing, fear of ideas being public. Led 3 ideation workshops with different innovation groups to elicit ideas and possible solutions. Also discussed potential risks and concerns related to certain solutions.
New Tool Creation
Used 3D Printing Lab as a case study to map user journey for current project intake process. Through co-creation workshop, developed new project scorecard to evaluate requests on their alignment with 3D Printing Lab priorities and potential for success.
Build
Functional Requirements & Prototype
Using learnings from research and ideation, worked with IT Service Management Team to understand capabilities of existing tools (i.e., Service Now) and developed list of 35 functional requirements for improved human-centered workflow. Supported creation of v1 prototype to pilot a new intake process with select innovation hubs.
Personal Key Takeaways: The importance of analogous inspiration to learn about processes and best practices being used in related industries. Also the challenge of working within large, highly regulated organizations that are extremely risk averse.