In nearly every field of endeavor, organizations that foster a culture of innovation and promote inventive approaches thrive, while those that do not fall behind. New thinking is the key to improved performance. Fresh ideas lead to gains in efficiency and quality. This is increasingly true in health care, where status quo processes are no longer tenable.

Like all business functions, innovation is a management practice — a discipline with specific tools and processes. Any organization can learn and implement these processes and tools. And even the most creative, forward-thinking organization can continue to learn to innovate. 

To achieve the goals of increased quality and reduced costs that are essential to reform, health care organizations must develop novel solutions to seemingly intractable everyday problems. Now more than ever, health care must cultivate and celebrate new ideas and solutions. 

To help organizations create a successful culture of innovation, the Institute for Healthcare Improvement (IHI) is offering an exciting new program, Web&ACTION: Developing Innovative Solutions to Everyday Problems. Over the course of this web-based program, experts from inside and outside of health care will introduce efficient ways to identify, test, and implement solutions to the difficult problems hospitals face every day. Using case studies and examples, participants will learn the principles of innovation, including disruptive innovation and positive deviance; how to collect and scan for ideas; and how to test and implement these ideas to help take their organization to the next level of health care delivery.

At the end of this program, participants will be able to:

• Identify areas within their organization where innovation is needed
• Scan for novel ideas and solutions to address these problem areas
• Test and refine these ideas within the organization
• Make continuous innovation and improvement “the way we work”