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Responsible innovation in health and health system sustainability: Insights from health innovators' views and practices.

ABSTRACT: Although healthcare managers make increasingly difficult decisions about health innovations, the way they may interact with innovators to foster health system sustainability remains underexplored. Drawing on the Responsible Innovation in Health (RIH) framework, this paper analyses interviews (n=37) with Canadian and Brazilian innovators to identify: how they operationalize inclusive design processes; what influences the responsiveness of their innovation to system-level challenges; and how they consider the level and intensity of care required by their innovation. Our qualitative findings indicate that innovators seek to: 1) engage stakeholders at an early ideation stage through context-specific methods combining both formal and informal strategies; 2) address specific system-level benefits but often struggle with the positioning of their solution within the health system; and 3) mitigate staff shortages in specialized care, increase general practitioners' capacity or patients and informal caregivers' autonomy. These findings provide empirical insights on how healthcare managers can promote and organize collaborative processes that harness innovation towards more sustainable health systems. By adopting a RIH-oriented managerial role, they can set in place more inclusive design processes, articulate key system-level challenges, and help innovators adjust the level and intensity of care required by their innovation.

SUBMITTER: Lehoux P

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9574029 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Responsible innovation in health and health system sustainability: Insights from health innovators' views and practices.

Lehoux Pascale P Silva Hudson P HP Rocha de Oliveira Robson R Sabio Renata P RP Malas Kathy K

Health services management research 20211205 4

Although healthcare managers make increasingly difficult decisions about health innovations, the way they may interact with innovators to foster health system sustainability remains underexplored. Drawing on the Responsible Innovation in Health (RIH) framework, this paper analyses interviews (n=37) with Canadian and Brazilian innovators to identify: how they operationalize inclusive design processes; what influences the responsiveness of their innovation to system-level chal ...[more]

PMID: 34866461

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Project description:BackgroundWhile responsible innovation in health (RIH) suggests that health innovations could be purposefully designed to better support health systems, little is known about the system-level challenges that it should address. The goal of this paper is thus to document what is known about health systems' demand for innovations.MethodsWe searched 8 databases to perform a scoping review of the scientific literature on health system challenges published between January 2000 and April 2016. The challenges reported in the articles were classified using the dynamic health system framework. The countries where the studies had been conducted were grouped using the human development index (HDI). Frequency distributions and qualitative content analysis were performed.ResultsUp to 1391 challenges were extracted from 254 articles examining health systems in 99 countries. Across countries, the most frequently reported challenges pertained to: service delivery (25%), human resources (23%), and leadership and governance (21%). Our analyses indicate that innovations tend to increase challenges associated to human resources by affecting the nature and scope of their tasks, skills and responsibilities, to exacerbate service delivery issues when they are meant to be used by highly skilled providers and call for accountable governance of their dissemination, use and reimbursement. In countries with a low and medium HDI, problems arising with infrastructure, logistics and equipment were described in connection with challenges affecting procurement, supply and distribution systems. In countries with a medium and high HDI, challenges included a growing demand for drugs and new technology and the management of rising costs. Across all HDI groups, the need for flexible information technologies (IT) solutions to reach rural areas was underscored.ConclusionHighlighting challenges that are common across countries, this study suggests that RIH should aim to reduce the cost of innovation production processes and attend not only to the requirements of the immediate clinical context of use, but also to the vulnerabilities of the broader system wherein innovations are deployed. Policy-makers should translate system-level demand signals into innovation development opportunities since it is imperative to foster innovations that contribute to the success and sustainability of health systems.

Project description:BackgroundResponsible innovation in health (RIH) emphasizes the importance of developing technologies that are responsive to system-level challenges and support equitable and sustainable healthcare. To help decision-makers identify whether an innovation fulfills RIH requirements, we developed and validated an evidence-informed assessment tool comprised of 4 inclusion and exclusion criteria, 9 assessment attributes and a scoring system.MethodsWe conducted an inter-rater reliability assessment to establish the extent to which 2 raters agree when applying the RIH Tool to a diversified sample of health innovations (n=25). Following the Tool's 3-step process, sources of information were collected and cross-checked to ensure their clarity and relevance. Ratings were reported independently in a spreadsheet to generate the study's database. To measure inter-rater reliability, we used: a non-adjusted index (percent agreement), a chance-adjusted index (Gwet's AC) and the Pearson's correlation coefficient. Results of the Tool's application to the whole sample of innovations are summarized through descriptive statistics.ResultsOur findings show complete agreement for the screening criteria, "almost perfect" agreement for 7 assessment attributes, "substantial" agreement for 2 attributes and "almost perfect" agreement for the RIH overall score. A large portion of the sample obtained high scores for 6 attributes (health relevance, health inequalities, responsiveness, level and intensity of care and frugality) and low scores for 3 attributes (ethical, legal, and social issues [ELSIs], inclusiveness and eco-responsibility). At the rating step, 88% of the innovations had a sufficient number of attributes documented (≥ 7/9), but the assessment was based on sources of moderate to high quality (mean score ≥ 2 points) for 36% of the sample. While "Almost all RIH features" were present for 24% of the innovations (RIH mean score between 4.1-5.0 points), "Many RIH features" were present for 52% of the sample (3.1-4.0 points) and "Few RIH features" were present for 24% of the innovations (2.1-3.0 points).ConclusionBy confirming key aspects of the RIH Tool's reliability and applicability, our study brings its development to completion. It can be jointly put into action by innovation stakeholders who want to foster innovations with greater social, economic and environmental value.

Project description:ImportanceInnovation centers in US health care systems are increasingly common but variably successful and sustainable. Few studies have examined how and why some centers achieve sustainable success but others do not.ObjectiveTo explore whether and how innovation centers in US health care systems are able to successfully sustain themselves over multiple years.Design, setting, and participantsIn this qualitative study, semistructured, qualitative interviews of leaders at 9 innovation centers across the US were conducted from January 1, 2019, to December 31, 2020. Data analysis was conducted from December 2020 to April 2021 using qualitative methods and a deductive framework based on the Consolidated Framework for Implementation Research. Centers were identified through purposeful sampling. The 9 study centers had a mean age of 6 years (range, 2-15 years); most were affiliated with an academic teaching hospital and half with a medical school. Two were wholly separate from the health care system. Two-thirds had fewer than 10 full-time staff members.ExposuresAll interviewees were staff of a US-based innovation center. This study did not evaluate particular interventions or innovations.Main outcomes and measuresPerceptions of and views on factors associated with the success and sustainability of innovation centers.ResultsStaff interviewed at 9 innovation centers across the US described 3 key activities that appeared to be associated with long-term sustainability: facilitating innovation projects that were valued for quality improvement and cost avoidance, not just return on investment; acting as networking nodes for their institutions; and upskilling staff. These activities were associated with improved institutional culture. Two structural characteristics underpinned successful centers: finding an effective balance between being "internal" and being "external" to the organization and providing practical support and skills otherwise lacking within the wider institution.Conclusions and relevanceThis qualitative study of 9 innovation centers explored how centers sustained themselves within US health care institutions and showed that success was often associated with interpersonal relationships and cultural benefits. Independent financial sustainability was not always essential to longevity; systems also valued how centers could create cultures of innovation and upskill staff.

Project description:BackgroundWithin the Learning Health System (LHS) model, learning routines, including evaluation, allow for continuous incremental change to take place. Within these learning routines, evaluation assists in problem identification, data collection, and data transformation into contextualized information, which is then re-applied to the LHS environment. Evaluation that catalyzes learning and improvement may also contribute to health innovation sustainability. However, there is little consensus as to why certain evaluations seem to support learning and sustainability, while others impede it. This realist synthesis seeks to understand the contextual factors and underlying mechanisms or drivers that best support health systems learning and sustainable innovation.MethodsThis synthesis will be guided by Pawson and colleagues' 2005 and Emmel and colleagues' 2018 guidelines for conducting realist syntheses. The review process will encompass five steps: (1) scoping the review, (2) building theories, (3) identifying the evidence, (4) evidence selection and appraisal, and (5) data extraction and synthesis. An Expert Committee comprised of leaders in evaluation, innovation, sustainability, and realist methodology will guide this synthesis. Review findings will be reported using the RAMESES guidelines.DiscussionThe use of a realist review will allow for exploration and theorizing about the contextual factors and underlying mechanisms that make evaluations 'work' (or 'not work') to support learning and sustainability. Depending on results, we will attempt to synthesize findings into a series of recommendations for evaluations with the intention to support health systems learning and sustainability. Finalized results will be presented at national and international conferences, as well as disseminated via a peer-reviewed publication.Systematic review registrationThis realist synthesis protocol has been registered with PROSPERO ( https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/ ID 382690).

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Responsible innovation in health and health system sustainability: Insights from health innovators' views and practices.

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Responsible innovation in health and health system sustainability: Insights from health innovators' views and practices.

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