Chief innovation officers prioritize designing a more ‘innovation-friendly’ environment

Posted on September 5, 2022 by Design in Design Innovation | 0 Comments

Chief innovation officers’ priorities include delivering the key principles behind innovation including leadership, creating networks, harnessing idea development, leveraging the right incentives and building and managing an effective, transparent and efficient innovation process.

Becker’s spoke to health system chief innovation officers about what their top priorities are for their role.

Thomas Graham, MD. Chief Innovation and Transformation Officer of Kettering (Ohio) Health: Unequivocally, the focus should not be shifted to the generation of non-clinical revenue — the priority is enculturation.

The No. 1 job for a chief innovation officer is to create and maintain an environment where innovation is an enterprise imperative and that all caregivers understand their ideas have value.

Elizabeth Hagerman, PhD. Chief Innovation Officer of UW Health (Madison, Wis.): My top priority as chief innovation officer is to encourage innovators in my organization to creatively problem-solve and to ensure that they know what options and resources are available to them to support the innovative solutions they are pursuing.

Because there is no one-size-fits-all for supporting and implementing new ideas, this often requires a collection of viewpoints, services and resources for an innovator or innovation to become successful.

The more innovators can be supported with diverse guidance and insights, the more success we will see over time.

Jesse Goodwin, PhD. Chief Innovation Officer of MUSC Health (Charleston, S.C.): My top priority as chief innovation officer is to create a culture of innovation at MUSC that celebrates intrapreneurs and entrepreneurs, and ideas both big and small.

This requires building an ecosystem of support to ensure that our employees’ ideas are heard and have a pathway to implementation. Over the last three years, we have had a 300 percent increase in idea generation. That engagement is coming from every facet of our organization.