Overview

NAPH member hospitals and health systems are known for innovating ways to improve quality and safety for their community, as well as for developing new delivery and payment models of care for vulnerable patient populations with limited resources. Three complementary concepts are essential for true health care transformation and these features tell the stories of these components.

Innovations —ideas, practices, or objects perceived as new — are integral in advancing health care. Likewise, the concept of disruptive innovation, introduced by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton M. Christensen as an unexpected new offering that makes a product or service more affordable and thus more accessible, is being explored to support transformation and reinvention of the U.S. health care system. According to the New York Times, disruptive innovators seek to shape the health care system by providing a continuum of care focused on a patient’s needs. For the greatest impact, diffusion of an innovation in health care is the spread of improvements to positively affect outcomes for large numbers of individuals in the health care system.

The concepts of innovation, disruptive innovation and diffusion are critical for health care reform. The systems of care delivery will need to meet the needs of both an expanding group of insured patients and the millions who will remain uninsured. The goal will be to improve the quality and safety of the current systems while increasing the focus on prevention, population health and improved outcomes across a larger continuum of care.

Unfortunately, many successful innovations in health care are implemented slowly or not at all, leaving knowledge and successful scientific processes of care unused. In order for an innovation to be widely adopted, it must diffuse through a network of providers and be championed by venturesome individuals who are willing to accept risk if an innovation fails and respected by their peers as leaders in the use of new ideas. A health care organization also must have an encouraging and supportive environment offering resources and security for innovators.
 
NAPH members are innovators, as evidenced by the number of successful stories and examples. These featured innovations are the tip of the iceberg ; there are other successful examples out there and we ask that you share your story with us. Please use these featured ideas as the starting point as you look for solutions to areas in need of improvement at your organization. Talk to the innovators from other NAPH members and adapt programs to fit your organization.
 
Please contact jhooker@naph.org if you have a successful innovation about quality, safety or unique programs of care in special populations that you would like to share.