“In a recent New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) Catalyst article, Dr. Ryan Vega of the Veterans Health Administration (VHA) and Dr. Kenneth W. Kizer of Atlas Research describe a model for operationalizing and scaling innovation in health care systems. This model is based on the successful VHA Innovation Ecosystem (VHA IE).”
“According to Vega and Kizer, for more than two decades innovation has been advocated as a solution to American health care’s rising costs and too often unsatisfying outcomes. In the article, they assert that an abundance of innovative health care products and practices have been developed in recent years, but most have neither produced dramatic improvements in care nor spread at the pace and scale needed to transform care delivery and materially bend the health care cost curve. They argue that if innovation is going to transform health care, then replicable operating models are needed for developing, adopting, spreading and sustaining innovations.”
“According to the authors, the foundation of innovation is built on four core elements – “workforce capacity to actualize innovation; an organizational infrastructure that supports integrated, systematic, repeatable pathways for change; an innovation-nurturing culture; and strategic external partnerships and collaborations.”
“Since 2015, the VHA IE has been using these four elements to develop, adopt, spread, and sustain innovations that are well-informed by frontline caregivers and patients. The authors detail several activities from the VHA IE portfolio to show how VHA, a complicated government organization and the nation’s largest integrated health system, is building a foundation for innovation…” Read the full press release here.
Source: VHA’s Dr. Vega and Atlas Research’s Dr. Kizer on Operationalizing Innovation in Health Care – October 27, 2020. Atlas Research.
