How to Ensure Your Health Care Innovation Doesn’t Flop

These days, everyone working in health care is chasing innovation to thrive in this era of increased accountability for care quality and cost and (finally) truly patient-centered care. Those still pursuing business as usual are often chronically anxious: They keep hearing that innovation is essential to the transition, but they see it (often rightly) as difficult or impossible to execute in their organization, and they aren’t sure where to begin.

Transforming health care delivery into a system that is more value-based (where pay is based on outcomes rather than the volume of services) and patient-centric will require a commitment to change, whether it’s radical innovation, incremental innovation, or simply trying to do better. The innovation journey will be more effective if we remember that organizations don’t need to invent to innovate, that a steady stream of incremental innovations can lead to significant gains.