Running head: INNOVATION FOR PERFORMANCE IMPROVEMENT

Organizational Innovation for Performance Improvement

Sara R. Bolton

School of Nursing, University of North Carolina at Greensboro

NUR 645: Strategic Management of Healthcare Organizations

Dr. Lindsay Draper, DNP, MSN/MBA, RN-BC

October 26, 2022

I have abided by the UNC-G Academic Integrity Policy on this assignment

Sara R. Bolton October 26, 2022

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Organizational Innovation for Performance Improvement

Why is innovation important in nursing leadership? Innovation is one of the main factors

within performance improvement and nurse leaders must encourage innovation within their

organizations. Creativity, innovation, and performance improvement have similarities and

differences, as well as advantages and disadvantages to each. Creativity, innovation, and

performance all have the potential to be sustainable with proper support. The Gaston County

Health Department utilizes creativity, encourages innovation, and invests in performance

improvement, however there are several recommendations for continuous improvements.

Creativity, innovation, and performance improvement are each important to healthcare

organizations and they require proper support from nursing leadership to remain sustainable.

Creativity versus Innovation versus Performance Improvement

Creativity

Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2018) define creative as “having the quality or power to

cause something new to come into being; imaginative” (p. 110). They define creative thinking as

“thinking in a new direction, away from or beyond current mental patterns toward some new

pattern,” and a creative idea as “an original, novel thought” (p. 110). After reading multiple

definitions of creativity, including Oxford Languages’ definition as: “the use of the imagination

or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work,” I have concluded that the best

way to define creativity is the ability to produce new ideas. Oxford Language lists innovation

and imagination as similar words.

Innovation
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Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2018) list many definitions for innovation including “a

historic and irreversible change in the way of doing things,” “the effort to create purposeful

focused change in an enterprise’s economic or social potential,” and “anything that creates new

resources processes, or values or improves a company’s existing resources, processes, or values”

(p. 110). Oxford Languages defines innovation as “the action or process of innovating” and

provides an example sentence of “innovation is crucial to the continuing success of any

organization.” My understanding of innovation is new ideas to improve an organization,

business, or market.

Performance Improvement

Porter-O’Grady and Malloch (2018) do not provide a definition for performance

improvement, however they do define process improvement as “the activity of elevating the

performance of a series of actions, especially that of a business process with regard to its goal”

(p. 111). Wikipedia defines performance improvement as “measuring the output of a particular

business process or procedure, then modifying the process or procedure to increase the output,

increase efficiency, or increase the effectiveness of the process or procedure.” They list similar

words as change, revolution, transformation, and alteration. My understanding of performance

improvement is that it utilizes innovation, along with other important factors such as evidence-

based practice and data-driven information, to improve a process or an organization’s overall

performance.

Advantages and Disadvantages

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There are advantages and disadvantages to each concept of creativity, innovation, and

performance improvement. Creativity is important as it is the base of innovation, however,

creativity alone will not evolve processes or organizations. Innovation is what all organizations

should be striving for. Innovation alone will not transform organizations. Performance

improvement is what will transform organizations utilizing innovation, along with other factors.

Performance improvement may focus on smaller processes at times, other than the whole of

transforming an organization. Of course, small process changes are puzzle pieces within

innovative transformation. Performance improvement can be viewed on a smaller aspect such as

this, or a larger, more vague, overall type aspect such as organizational transformation.

Sustainability

I do not believe there is a difference in sustainability for each concept. Truly, each

concept relies on fostering and support of the concept for it to remain continuous. If creativity is

not supported and fostered, it may wane. On the other hand, when creativity is encouraged and

fostered it may remain continuous. Think about children, for example, if you encourage your

child to be creative and imaginative, they are more likely to continue with this mindset, rather

than those who do not support creativity, the child is more likely to be comfortable with what

they already know and more afraid of change. Innovation, too, must be encouraged and

supported to remain continuous. If employees do not feel innovation is encouraged and

supported, they are less likely to offer up their innovative ideas.

If you are working on performance improvement but you are not following the

improvement and reassessing the success or lack thereof, you are not fostering and supporting

the improvement of performance and performance then is less likely to improve. However, if you
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regularly follow the performance improvement with data driven information you are fostering

the improvement and it will be more likely to succeed.

Organizational Examples

The health department utilizes creativity to create supporting documents/communication

surrounding innovation and performance improvement. They are innovative by thinking outside

the box on a significantly sized level such as the creation of a job position for a traveling Covid

nurse to serve the community. This is innovation that has the potential to transform the

community reach from the organization regarding Covid and, in turn, the potential to reduce

Covid cases overall. This innovative concept supports performance improvement around Covid.

The clinic nurses and community nurse will communicate regularly regarding successes and

opportunities for growth. Thakore et al. (2022) reflected upon innovative performance

improvements surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic. This includes changes to treatment

escalation planning, end-of-life care, and hospital visiting. They considered both processes and

experiences of patients and staff when implementing these improvements.

Another performance improvement that has been completed is implementation of a new

electronic health record. They hope to improve flow performance, billing performance, overall

community reach, confidential communication with patients, etc. This performance improvement

relied on innovation, evidence-based practice, marketing, information technology, data-driven

information and more. Roth (2021) writes about innovation in technology during the Covid-19

pandemic. She discusses utilization of voice activated technology like Alexa in healthcare,

especially during Covid-19. This allows for healthcare workers to spend more time directly at the
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patient’s bedside and improves infection control, as nurses can utilize technology without

touching technological devices.

Organizational Recommendations

Recommendations to the health department to advance innovation are including

creativity-type questions in interviews so you recruit naturally creative individuals as employees,

communicating with employees and including innovation in the vision and/or mission, ensuring

employees know innovation is encouraged and welcomed, and having regular meetings to assess

innovative ideas.

Conclusion

In conclusion, creativity, innovation, and performance improvement are all important

concepts within any organization, and while they have their differences, they do work together.

One must be creative to be innovative and innovation is an important factor for performance

improvement- which is ultimately what organizations should continuously be striving for.

 
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References

Oxford Languages. Creativity. https://www.google.com/search?

q=creativity+definition&oq=creat&aqs=chrome.0.69i59j69i57j0i131i433i512l2j0i433i51

2j46i131i199i433i465i512j0i131i433i512l2j46i131i199i433i465i512j0i131i433i512.163

2j0j15&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Oxford Languages. Innovation. https://www.google.com/search?

q=innovation&oq=innovation&aqs=chrome..69i57j0i271l2j69i59i450l6.1234j0j15&sour

ceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Porter-O’Grady, T., & Malloch, K. (2018). Innovation leadership and professional governance:

Building the structure for transformation. In Porter-O'Grady & Malloch's

(Eds.), Quantum leadership: Building better partnerships for sustainable health (5th

ed.), p. 105-136. Jones and Bartlett Learning. 

Roth, M. (2021). How voice tech will change healthcare delivery: Conversational AI technology

is spurring a wave of innovation between tech companies and healthcare organizations.

HealthLeaders Magazine, 24(4), 22-27.

Thakore, S., Baldie, D., & Teeling, S. P. (2022). Enabling innovation and sustainable

improvement in person-centered healthcare during the first wave of the Covid-19

pandemic- A reflective account. International Practice Development Journal, 12(1), 1-8.

https://doi-org.libproxy.uncg.edu/10.19043/ipdj.121.007

Wikipedia. July 16, 2022. Performance Improvement.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Performance_improvement
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(Note: I wouldn’t typically utilize Wikipedia, but for the purpose of a definition that fit with the

textbook definition as well, it seemed appropriate).