Health systems turn to front-line workers for innovation

Health systems are turning to their front-line employees for innovation ideas, including using software platforms to engage them, panelists said Thursday.

“If we are going to remain viable and competitive in this very crowded space, we have to innovate,” said Kamari Green, product innovation manager at Advocate Aurora Health. “We can’t wait around to see what our competitors are doing. We really need to be leaders.”

Green said a lot of the best ideas come from those closest to the patients. They, like the other health systems on the panel during the OnRamp Healthcare Conference, a gener8tor program, use software from Milwaukee-based Ideawake to create “innovation challenges” that seek to engage staff.

One of Advocate Aurora Health’s projects focused on finding ways to support employees’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Green said they’ve had some difficulties around getting workers involved, like time commitments and the amount of communication needed to get them to participate.

“It’s really hard to take resources away from the front lines, especially as we continue to see the surge with the pandemic,” she said. But she said the effort has helped staff feel like they have a voice in the organization.

Kip McCoy, vice president of innovation integration at OSF HealthCare in Illinois, said they’re engaging employees in a way they haven’t been before. He said they sought input on how to engage on the social determinants of health and public health.

“To be able to solve some of the biggest problems we have, it’s about being able to engage the people on the front line and knowing that the same traditional thinking or way of approaching problem solving, especially from some of the top-down side, is not going to get it done,” McCoy said. “We have so many different creative minds that are out there.”

Carson Walker, innovation specialists at Sanford Health in South Dakota, said they sought feedback from staff on a project to aiming at boosting suicide awareness.

“We came away with about 40 ideas that gave those leaders some grist from the front line on how to remake our education program on what is a very serious issue,” Walker said. “They took what was gathered and that informed them as they were already making decisions in that area.”