Enabling health service innovation What enabled health service innovation during the pandemic? Crisis, staff, system or management?
While there has always been an interest in
to take place. Based on interviews with 28
pursuing innovation within the healthcare system,
Queensland health professionals closely involved
implementing system change can seem a drawn
with innovation examples, findings from these case
out and daunting task. This poses the question as
studies identified three primary themes:
to why, during the pandemic while our healthcare workforce faces immense pressures, did we see not only new innovation across the system, but also a reduction in the time taken to implement new programs. The recently published Perspectives Brief from the AHHA’s Deeble Institute for Health Policy Research considers data collected in an Allied Health COVID-19 Innovation Register created by the Allied Health Professions’ Office of Queensland (AHPOQ). The Register collected examples of innovative allied health models of care and practice changes during the pandemic preparedness phase, early 2020. AHPOQ observed that these new models were implemented more quickly than had previously occurred. Case studies have since been undertaken to understand what enabled these innovations
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The Health Advocate • FEBRUARY 2022
Adaptation Adaptation, more specifically adaptive management style and processes. That is, instead of ‘normal’ incremental steps leading up to an eventual change, reasonable changes were proposed then implemented and refined, and reviewed after the fact to ensure continual improvements. Interviewees said during this time managers were more open to new ideas and innovations.
Devolved Authority structures During the early stages of the pandemic, interviewed participants felt they had more power to make and implement service delivery decisions in a way they hadn’t in the past. This devolution in authority structure saw managers enabling staff to introduce new processes and increase the speed of change and adoption.
