Healthcare professional in hospital setting

Maine Health

Investing in a culture of innovation

THE CHALLENGE

Healthcare is evolving at a rapid pace. To remain leaders in this changing environment, many hospitals are developing an “innovation pathway” to explore and nurture promising new ideas from employees from across their system. Today, there are at least 66 hospital-based innovation centers in the U.S., most of which are fewer than 10 years old.

Innovation centers and the facilities health systems have built to support them, vary as widely as the set of problems they face. Programs range from advanced surgical experimentation labs to startup accelerator programs to corporate partnerships that focus on specific aspects of patient care. Sizes range from four employees to 60 or more. And goals vary too, from employee engagement to more effective sourcing of external solutions, to commercialization of internally developed innovations.

To launch their programs, some health systems raised tens of millions of dollars in grant funding and corporate contributions, making significant capital investments in facilities, equipment and staff. More often, innovation centers were launched with a small, agile team, gradually developing the people and processes needed to foster innovation.

THE CLIENT

MaineHealth is the largest healthcare organization in Maine, a leading healthcare provider for northern New Hampshire, and recognized as one of the nation’s top integrated healthcare delivery networks. While technology is erasing borders, MaineHealth’s position as a major rural provider, coupled with its academic medical center, creates a unique opportunity for leadership and innovation.

MaineHealth recognizes that creating a culture of innovation is becoming an essential ingredient to remaining competitive at a time when clinical professionals are more in demand than ever. They also recognize that there are significant opportunities to incorporate new approaches that can bring maximum value both to their members and to the communities they serve.

We are not looking to create an innovation group. We are looking to create a culture of innovation.

Bill Caron & Jeff Sanders

THE APPROACH

MaineHealth sought a partner to conduct an in-depth discovery process to assess the opportunity for developing an innovation pathway in their organization. We utilized a diverse research approach, gathering insights from a range of internal and external sources. This combination of primary and secondary research afforded us a deep understanding of the cultural context that can foster a culture of innovation at MaineHealth.

Our research approach began with domain immersion, where we examined trends and recent developments in applying innovation practices to the delivery of care. To better understand the opportunity, we analyzed a number of established innovation centers, mining them for ideas and best practices.

We augmented this research with stakeholder interviews, to better understand the “architecture” of the organization and the interconnected fabric of its service lines and employees. We interviewed individuals inside and outside of MaineHealth who have pioneered innovative ideas, to understand their motivations and respective journeys. We asked them about the challenges they faced and their experiences in overcoming them.

We took these learnings and crafted personas and journeys, each representing a group of people with similar characteristics, values and behaviors, Mapping the “Innovator’s journey” helped us better understand the challenges and opportunities on the path to pilot and implementation.

THE INNOVATOR'S JOURNEY

CORE RECOMMENDATIONS

Finally, we synthesized our findings and condensed them into core recommendations. We strongly believe that MaineHealth is well positioned to foster a culture of innovation that empowers any person in the organization to change it for the better. Their deep commitment to incubating and acclerating ideas is clear, whether related to digital products, medical devices, scientific breakthroughs or process improvements, and they have already secured a number of patents.

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