Clàudia Pardo, a consultant of open innovation at Induct accompanies and helps entities in the health sector to adapt to the new needs of the future. Clàudia Pardo, together with Dolors Benítez, led the first edition of Innovate and Assess (see the previous post), a training programme of the Observatory of Innovation in Healthcare Management in Catalonia (OIGS).
This is why today we offer you an interview in which Clàudia Pardo of Induct talks to Francesca Moya, a specialist doctor in rheumatology, at present the Director of Processes and Quality in the Area of Healthcare in Mútua de Terrassa. We would like to share her experience at the OIGS in the context of the Innovate and Assess workshop because we feel that it could be of use to many other professionals.
What would you highlight about the OIGS in terms of assessing innovation?
The observatory has been an important lever in introducing the concept of innovation in micromanagement and healthcare practices among professionals and management teams. Personally, the OIGS has given me the necessary methodology and support to identify potential innovative practices and to introduce assessment in the project development process of projects that professionals themselves propose. It has also allowed me to get to know the experiences of other centres, to learn from this and to encourage relationships between other professionals.
In your opinion, why is assessing innovation in healthcare practices important?
The only way to quantify a clinical or organisational improvement that has been put into practice is to assess it. We learnt this during this OIGS course. The scientific interest that professionals have in innovation, with the aim of including new practices or technologies to bring us closer to an improved healthcare, can sometimes mean that certain resources are assigned to practices which do not provide any value and this can have a high cost, not only economic but also of opportunity and lead to inequality in the system.
How did the need arise to start assessing good practices in healthcare in your centre?
Innovation in healthcare practices is necessary if they are to be improved, and assessing it is essential to quantify improvements. I would say that the need to assess arose out of the curiosity and need to know whether what we are doing, including the novelties that we implement and the resources of all types that we assign, are in any way relevant to our clients and to the organisation. But there is another important aspect which encouraged and motivated us, by no means a minor one; giving visibility to everything we do and sharing it all as well as acknowledging the efforts and contributions of the professionals who make it possible to improve the health system. The OIGS is a tool aimed at facilitating the entire process.
What advice would you give when incorporating assessment in innovation?
In my experience, I think the first thing to consider when wanting to assess what is being done is to think about this from the start of any project that is to be implemented. Let me explain myself: one of the greatest problems that I have had personally when wanting to assess a practice, experience or project has been the lack of necessary data, problems of design and the lack of knowledge regarding the adequate methodology needed to do it. Therefore, my advice would be to start any new project by planning what you want to achieve and what you need to measure in order to know whether you have been successful or not. Methodology is basic in the field of assessment and that is the expertise of the AQuAS.
What reasons would you give the centre to take on this approach?
I consider that knowing the results of what we do is basic for our organisations so that we are aware of the value it has, what it offers us, whether we should continue doing it, whether we can apply it to other areas of care, whether we should forget about it and change it for other practices or whether we can improve it.
Interview by Clàudia Pardo (@Claudiia_Pardo), Induct (@InductES).