Mission possible: open innovation in nursing and patient care services at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Abstract

Objectives: Although front-line nurses and staff are uniquely positioned to identify the inefficiencies and gaps in care delivery, formal processes are not always in place to hear from those very employees.

Design: We established a scalable process that embodies open innovation principles, to broaden and distribute the innovation locus.

Setting: Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA.

Particpitants: We invited 8800+ nurses and other direct caregivers to participate in organisational problem solving.

Interventions: We solicited employees to (1) identify pain points and develop solutions and (2) crowd vote to indicate which ideas they want to see implemented.

Results: 177 employees submitted 225 ideas, and 928 cast a vote. The 40 participants who submitted top-voted ideas were invited to develop a detailed implementation plan; of those, 27 submitted one. Four ideas emerged as winners.

Conclusions: Formulating a clear call for ideas, securing leadership buy-in and generating excitement about the process were essential to our efforts. Challenges associated with opening the innovation process involved managing a large volume of participants and submissions, and providing on-the-go training to nurses and staff who were not used to being asked to participate in organisational problem solving.