Introduction
Healthcare organizations have received a very dramatic explosion of innovation that targets the enhancement of excellent service delivery. This is mostly in the context of diagnosis, increasing life expectancy, increasing the number of treatment options, and ensuring that the service itself is efficient and supports the concept of ‘quality service for your money. Innovativeness is very essential in healthcare in order to come up with new services that are better and enhance human health. The description of innovation encompasses such aspects as novel routines, characteristics as well as processes of working. In this case, the intention is to help realize better outcomes in the delivery of services within the health sector. This also entails the experiences of patients and the administration. There are several issues or matters that have to be considered to ensure the innovation process in an organization is successful. These factors are discussed in this paper as follows.
Appropriate Structure
Innovation in the healthcare organization remains a very big driving force that is propelling the pursuit for a balance between cost control and healthcare quality (Omachonu & Einspruch, 2010, p. 4). Therefore innovation is a very critical element in the production business and it’s necessary for competitive existence.
Compatibility is a very important element to consider since this could be a major opportunity for success. It has been found that those innovations that exhibit a high rate of compatibility with the intended use or function of the services, its principles, the standards, or the perceived needs get strongly adopted (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 596). If at all the assimilation process within an organization is to succeed, there is the need to ensure that there is compatibility between, on the one hand, the principles and professional values that a firm holds dear and on the other hand, the organization itself. An example of such concerns is the introduction of IT technology, though the It sector provides the greatest opportunity for progress in better service delivery, its compatibility with existing is usually a major setback. Many facilities usually commit a lot of time to ist adoption some taking years to effect the transformation from paper documentation and manual prescriptions to IT-based or electronic documentation and prescription.
Complexity: this is a crucial factor to consider since only those services that are perceived as easy to use by the key players because of being simple are the ones that get faster acceptance and consequently successful adoption (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 596). Simply, the perceived complexity can be decreased by the level of practical experience that the parties involved have and also the extent and simplicity of the demonstration process. Studies reveal that if it is possible to break down the process of demonstration into parts that are manageable as well as incrementally, the adoption of these services would be easy and successful (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 596). If there are very few barriers in the process of assimilation that have to be faced, then assimilation will be easy and faster. Accordingly, it is important to ensure the setting up of interventions measures with a view to lowering the degree or number of reaction impediments, in effect helping to enhance a successful adoption process by an organization (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 596). An example is the introduction of robotics and nanotechnology. Basically, this is a very complicated technology that requires a deep understanding of surgery and the technology. This is the reason why despite the success that these services portend, they have not been widely adopted in many organizations.
Trialability: this is also very crucial and it deals with the level to which the intended users can be able to experiment on a limited basis. Those services that can be experimented with easily get faster adoption (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 596). In order to achieve these kinds of experimentation, it is important to make allowance for ‘trialability space’. The germ cell technology is an example. The technology presents a solution to infertility; however, its trial is usually very costly. There are a lot of embryos that get destroyed and so far only very few have been successfully done. E.g Successful cloning of a sheep in Scotland was attained but a lot of embryos about 600 had failed.
Benefit Observability: when the innovation of the services has very observable outcomes to the intended users, then its adoption is can be guaranteed based on the outcomes. Nonetheless, if the benefits are not evident, there would reluctance in adopting the novel set of values of the new service (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 596). When the visibility initiative of an assimilation effort is increased, this in effect acts to augment the actual process of assimilation. For instance, very many benefits can be attributed to information technology in diagnosis, documentation, and prescription. Diagnosis is faster and accurate as well as the process of prescription. Documentation is clean and the paperwork is greatly cut down. Furthermore distance prescription and service delivery can be possible. This is the reason why though the process was slack in adoption because of the cost and knowledge, it’s picking up steadily.
The Risk: this is a very strong factor to consider since some services can portend grave risks that outweigh the benefit. Setting interventions that improve the relevance of the anticipated risk is likely to improve the chances that adoption will be a success (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 597). The innovation process has to be workable, feasible, and simple for it to be adopted easily. In most cases, the benefit and the risk are usually not balanced or evenly distributed, however, if a balance can be obtained, then the organization’s power base is able to be reflected through this means. As a result, assimilations will be very easy (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 597).
Skill and Knowledge: essentially, the amount of knowledge or the type of skills that are required for the innovation is very critical since when there is no person with relevant skills then the innovations are useless. However is the needed knowledge could be codified and transferred from one contest to the next the adoption process would be very simple (Greenhalgh et al, 2004, p. 597). An example here is the use of new technologies in the diagnosis of diseases. This usually involves a lot of ‘unknowns’ as practitioners try to adopt the technology. It hence needs further training and this can take a while.
The barrier to the Adoption Process
Several setbacks can stand in the way of the adoption of a new process or service delivery model. Some of the barriers to be considered include:
Lack of adequate resources for investing in the new service: New technology can be very costly and when an organization lacks the resources like personnel necessary for implementing the new technology and lack of time can be a major problem (Robert, et al, 2009, p. 18). Examples include the treatment of diseases that were previously untreatable like end-stage renal illness and diabetes. Great advancement like managing an acute condition like bypass graft on the coronary artery or developing finer procedure like using erythropoietin to manage anemia is very costly.
Lack of strategic management in the healthcare organization could be a problem. A process that is somehow fragmented is not easy to work with; having organizational leadership that is strategic is therefore very important since the decision can be reached very easily (Robert, et al, 2009, p. 18). Lack of incentives for the practitioners: service providers sometimes do not actually discern the benefit of having a new service when the older ones are still working and they are so much used to them. For these reasons, they need to be provided with spur that will make them appreciate the new service (Robert, et al, 2009, p. 18).
Organizational Characteristics
There are some very important characteristics that the healthcare organization should have in its attempt to adopt new services. The resources – include personnel, cash, and other resources (Omachonu & Einspruch, 2010, p. 6). Specialization – this is when the organization had clear defined roles where departments do not meddle in each other’s work too much (Becker, 2004, p. 658). The management should be decentralized allowing semi-autonomous units that need not get a decision made by top management. The staff should also be able to access the new knowledge through sharing, training, and so on.
Conclusion
The changes in the healthcare organization are very necessary and inevitable. This is because there is a consistent betterment of care delivery. Nonetheless, some obstacles need to be eliminated for the successful adoption of new services. As discussed above, the factors are very numerous. Other issues like the problem of routine are a setback. People tend to be reluctant to change since what they are used to gets characterized by recurrence, processual nature, and mindlessness.
Reference List
Becker, C.M., 2004. Organizational Routines: A review Of the Literature. Industrial and Corporate Change, Vol. 13 No. 4 pp. 643 – 677
Greenhalgh, T. et al., 2004. Diffusion of Innovations in service Organization. Systematic Review and Recommendations, Vol. 82, No. 4, pp. 581-629
Omachonu, V. K & Einspruch, N. G. 2010. Innovation in Healthcare Delivery Systems: A Conceptual Framework, The Innovation Journal: the Public Sector. Innovation Journal, Vol, 15, No. 1, pp. 2 – 16
Robert, G. et al., 2009. Organizational Factors Influencing Technology Adoption and Assimilation in the NHS: A Systematic Literature Review, Report for the National Institute Health Research Service Delivery and Organization Programme