Increased innovation competence in healthcare

Purpose and goal

The purpose of the project was to disseminate scientific knowledge and methods in design innovation, or service design. The objective was for: - The innovation practicians to have relevant skills in service design and apply those in real development initiatives in their organizations - The intermediary to be in contact with other organizations about similar initiatives - The scientists to have an outline for a scientific article The objectives have been met in all but one sub objective.

Expected results and effects

The expectation on the training program was that the increased design skills would be a creative reinforcement to improvement ideas generated in the healthcare organizations. Key learnings happened in three areas: putting needs before solutions, taking the perspective of the customer and asking open-ended questions in interviews, where the participants have reached a skill level. Overall positive evaluations were given with an emphasis on the value of the individual coaching and the pair assignments. The impact is seen mainly in how participants now put needs first.

Planned approach and implementation

The trainers observed that it is common to regard competence development and experimentation as separate from work, non-routine, thereby giving it lower priority. In addition, workplace learning tends to be something that individuals do on their own and not in groups. Analysis of the execution yielded four improvement recommendations: - Involve participants’ managers earlier, already before the training program starts - Recruit participants in groups of 3-5 from the same unit - Kick the program off with a two-day session - Use training facilities optimized for creative learning