How do you embed a sustainable approach to healthcare innovation when the term innovation means different things to different people? How do you embed a system wide approach with the evolving changes in Dorset and nationally?
There is ‘‘widespread recognition of the importance of innovation in health and social care”1 and establishing the Dorset Innovation Hub in October 2021 (one of four Health Foundation hubs in England) has provided us with a unique opportunity to explore and develop a sustainable approach.
Working with the Innovation Unit, we have spent the last year developing a sustainable approach to the work of the hub adopting the Accelerated Access Collaborative (AAC), NHSE, Care Quality Commission (CQC), NICE and partners ‘Enabling innovation and adoption in health and social care – Developing a shared view’ (Feb 2021) 1 utilising the six principles:
- Develop and deploy innovations with the people that will use them
- Develop a culture where innovation can happen
- Support your people
- Adopt the best ideas and share your learning
- Focus on outcomes and impact
- Be flexible when managing change
Alongside the approval to use, in Dorset, the AAC’s definition of innovation: “the term innovation to cover both invention (creating new ideas, products, services or models of care) and adoption (implementing what has worked elsewhere)” 1.
Sustainability is key to our approach, and by sustainability we mean the development of an innovation culture in Dorset and sustainable adoption of innovations. Our focus is on “Deploy” – adapt, adopt and spread of evidence-based innovation, and to do this we work as a system within the complementary quality pillars:
- Discovery, e.g. clinical research, inventive innovation.
- Develop, e.g. inventive innovation, clinical research, QI.
- Deploy, e.g. adapt, spread and adopt innovation, service improvement, QI, clinical audit.
Embedding a system wide approach with the evolving changes in Dorset and nationally, means that we work in an agile way to ensure the Dorset Innovation Hub is relevant, legitimate, and continues with the energy and enthusiasm from all partners. To do this our programme has been being developed to ensure our work in focused on improving the people of Dorset’s care, outcomes, or experience. We (our amazing Dorset Innovation Hub core team) provide facilitative innovation advice and support to our priority projects, working with the project sponsor and clinical teams. Recognising the Dorset system remains under pressure, activities being undertaken by the core team in conjunction with the clinical teams to minimise impact to clinical and operational staff.
Having just moved to a delivery stage, we are at the start of our journey. We have made good progress and have established the mechanisms to build a sustainable innovation culture in Dorset and sustainable adoption of innovations. Moving forward, are focus is on the implementation of evidence based innovation in health and care settings, with people focused benefits realisation including outcomes and experience and spreading areas of excellence2,3. Watch this space!
Sarah Chessell
Lead for the Dorset Innovation Hub
- Enabling innovation and adoption in health and social care – Developing a shared view (Feb 2021) https://www.cqc.org.uk/sites/default/files/20210208_InnovationPrinciples_report.pdf
- HeartFlow (NICE MTG32) HeartFlow – Innovation (ourdorset.org.uk)
- COVID oximetry at home Dorset Covid Oximetry at home (CO@H) – Innovation (ourdorset.org.uk)
