Welcome.

Innovation and Entrepreneurship in

Healthcare
Module code: MOD005917
Module Leader: Carmelita Charles
Email:
carmelita.charles@london.aru.ac.uk
Week 4 session 2
 Ground Rules
• Respect ( find out what it means to me)
• Valuing contributions –everyone has the right to
express their opinion
• Everyone has the right to be listened to and have
their views acknowledged
• Arguments will be challenged
• It is ok to laugh and have fun
• Zoom Online Etiquette
• Time Management
 Aims and Objectives
By the end of this session you will:
• Have identified characteristics of different
types of healthcare innovation
• Have Considered why healthcare innovations
are complex
• Have classified healthcare innovation
• Have engaged in a peer activity
 Healthcare Innovation Characteristics
“The health care product is ill-defined, the outcome of
care is uncertain, large segments of the industry are
dominated by non-profit providers, and payments are
made by third parties such as the government and private
insurers. Many of these factors are present in other
industries as well, but in no other industry are they all
present. It is the interaction of these factors that tends to
make health care unique.” (Morrisey, 2008)

• [James Barlow. Managing Innovation In Healthcare]

 Distinctive features of healthcare that
influence its innovation processes
• The nature of healthcare ‘technology’ and
‘innovation’.
• A risk-averse culture and extensive regulation
• The economics and politics of healthcare
• The environment into which new technologies
and other innovations are adopted and
implemented is often extremely complex,

• [James Barlow. Managing Innovation In

Healthcare]
 The Context for healthcare Innovation
The context within which hard and soft healthcare technologies are
created and deployed is very important. This can range from individual
patients to healthcare organisations or whole health systems. Even clearly
defined healthcare processes may be subject to a degree of customisation
depending on the specific context.
The meanings associated with a health-care technology are therefore
‘socially constructed’ within the context and evolve over time. This has
been shown in specific medical technologies. Cochlear implants (Garud
and Rappa, 1994) and cataract surgery (Metcalfe et al., 2005) are two
examples of medical technologies which evolved during their
development and use.

[James Barlow. Managing Innovation In Healthcare]

Comfort stop 15 minutes
Classifying Healthcare Innovations
Hard and Soft Technologies
 Hard and soft technologies in
healthcare
Hard technology, the physical artefacts — drugs, devices,
other equip-ment and physical infrastructure.

Soft technology, the practices, procedures, protocols, service

designs and
guidelines that are often used in conjunction with hard
technologies — a protocol for carrying out an innovative
surgical technique, for example, or more broadly a service
design for providing ‘telehealth’ or ‘telecare’ for frail elderly
people, combining sensors and other devices to monitor vital
and other signs with home care services.

• [James Barlow. Managing Innovation In Healthcare]

 Characteristics of healthcare
innovations
How an innovation is introduced and the path it subsequently
takes is therefore strongly influenced by the prevailing
structural characteristics of the given health system, in the
form of:
• cultural features (such as norms of practice, agreed
standards of evidence, professional identities, and codes of
conduct),
• physical features (such as the infrastructure of hospitals
and other facilities or the existing technological
architecture), and
• institutional features (the configuration of organisations,
regulations, and financial systems that comprise health
systems).
 Group Activity: Classifying healthcare
innovations
• Why do you think these have been described as
innovations?
• What is innovative about them?
• Try to categorise them according to
• — their degree of novelty (how new?);
• — their form or application (product, process, service);
• — their ‘innovativeness’ (radical, incremental,
architectural, modular).
• How easy do you think it will be to ensure the
innovation is widely adopted? What are the
organisational, cost-benefit and other acceptance issues?
 Useful Resources
• Barlow J (2017) Managing Innovation in
Healthcare. World Scientific. London.
• Bessant J and Tidd J (2011) 3rd edition
Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Wiley. West
Sussex.UK
• Lorenzo O, Kawalek p, Wharton L (2018)
Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Technology:
A Guide to Core Models and Tools. Routledge
Focus. London