Innovation & Technology for Health
Innovation means introducing something new or significantly improved that adds value to its users. Digital health innovations include various solutions for managing health digitally, such as mobile health, health information technology, wearable devices, self-care tools, telehealth, remote monitoring, and personalized medicine..
Innovations and technological advancements can transform and improve sectors making systems more sustainable. By effectivising processes, connecting silos, enhancing accessibility and improving monitoring procedures, these data-driven innovative solutions will spur on behavioural changes.
This is an intentional process. Great solutions are co-designed with users from the start, considering motivations, constraints and social contexts that influences integration. By following a structured approch, with implementation in mind, chances of developing impactful and sustainable solutions can be increased.
Useful for those intending to innovate for health . Tool guides on incorporating user needs in design. Researchers can also can be guided to ensure their new findings or methodologies address real needs hence advance science. Academics can use the tool-kits and resources to enhance practical teaching. The tools can be used in health and non-health sectors
The Toolkit
Welcome to the Innovation Toolkit! This is a 5-step toolkit with multiple shortlisted tools, useable for individual or group settings. Inspired by the NHS Sustainable Healthcare Approach this toolbox presents the innovation process with a clear focus on the user and the context.
UNDERSTANDING THE NEEDS
This first step when innovating is to make sure that you understand the true needs of your users. You also have to understand the context in which the innovation will be implemented. You need to be focussed and not lose sight of the reason for the innovation, which is to support the delivery of BETTER HEALTH CARE to the population through people centred-actions.
SHORTLISTED TOOLS
1.1 Define the problem (Problem Tree Analysis): This tool defines the problem to be tackled and lists immediate and down stream causes of the problem and the effects of a problem in form of tree's roots and branches (7 minute read).
1.2 Validate needs: This 2 page resource emphasizes importance of and approach to confirming the needs of people as what they say can be different from real behavior. Further observation or further interrogation is key (7 minute read).
1.3 Map stakeholders: This brief resource guides on how to profile the stakeholders to engage based on their influence and stake in the project/idea and guides on who to engage at what moments. Stakeholders can be categorized as promoters, defenders, audience and latents; requiring different approaches (6 minute read).
1.4 Analyse the context: This suggests that contextual factors need to be analyses and incorporated in design. The tool suggests some contextual factors to always consider (6 minute read).
EXPLORING THE IDEA
Now it is time to develop the concept — in close collaboration with the target users to ensure that they adopt the innovation.Understanding how people might respond to new services or technologies is embedded in psychology, social sciences and data sciences. It is important that the end user responses should be incorporated during the early stages of the design phase to address any behavioural risks that may arise after implementation. Following this process will facilitate in BEHAVIORAL DE-RISKING.
SHORTLISTED TOOLS
2.1 Develop the concept: This tool provides various approaches and scenarios to help teams create well-thought-out ideas (12 minute read).2.2 Analyse feasibility: Learn how to assess a project’s feasibility, identify potential pitfalls and evaluate the project risks through this tool (15 minute read).
2.3 Plan for impact management: By reading this tool, the reader will gain insight into defining impact, outcomes and outputs while developing a Theory of Change (12 minute read).
2.4 Investigate business and organisational model: Understand the importance of continuously improving of business and organisational models as expertise and knowledge grows by reading this tool (10 minute read).
2.5 Package the concept: Get introduced to the NABC tool, designed to help the you structure and present your idea with clarity and conviction (8 minute read).
DEVELOPING THE PRODUCT OR SERVICE
By now you have a pretty clear idea of your concept and it is time to test your concept in a real world environment, together with the future users. This aims at ensuring a seamless, explicit, simple and comprehensible interaction with the new technology. The people using your innovation need to be confident that, with the provided guidelines, they can achieve the required outcomes. Through this step you will build a roadmap needed for a successful implementation. Our end goal is to help you MAKE THE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS TANGIBLE.
SHORTLISTED TOOLS
3.1 Test and validate the concept: Highlights the importance of prototyping with readily available, low-cost material to assess user experience (8 minute read).3.2 Develop the product or service: Covers the importance of having well-defined development processes that ensure a successful launch and market relevance of a product or service (7 minute read).
3.3 Decide on health care integration strategies: Explores why multiple strategies ease integration of a product or service into a larger system and how this improves user accessibility (30-45 minute read).
3.4 Set up an implementation plan: This tool describes how a team can put their ideas into practice their idea. It also emphasises on early preparation and planning (10 minute read).
Make sure to revisit your insights!
IMPLEMENTING THE WORK
It’s time to put your vision into effect! Use roadmaps and user insights to make sure you, your team and your contractors stay on track and tweak the solution if needed. Efforts should be continuously focused towards the right kind of change in order to achieve the ultimate purpose. We encourage that you DELIVER EVIDENCE at every phase to inform and stay relevant.
SHORTLISTED TOOLS
4.1 Facilitate implementation: Utilizes the Promoting Action on Research Implementation in Health Sciences framework (PARiHS) framework to translate research into practice based on three factors namely; evidence, context and facilitation (7 minute read).4.2 Evaluate impact and improve solution: Exhaustively explains the theory of change for worthwhile impact evaluation of your innovation (11 minute read).
4.3 Communicate benefits in order to scale: Explains 4 steps for consideration during planning for communication of the benefits of your innovation (5 minute read).
SCALING THE POTENTIAL
If the first implementation journey proves to be successful, you probably want to move on and spread your innovation to include a larger population and more implementation sites. You might also want to scale the potential by looking into other scenarios/settings, users or regions where your innovation could be of use.
When implementing in a new environment you might have to redo some, or all, of the steps in the innovation process, not least if moving into a new country - where completely new organisational, cultural and/or regulatory conditions might prevail. However, being able to communicate proven impact from one setting surely helps in your endeavour to scale into new contexts. Regardless of the intial outcomes, always aim to REACH A BROADER POPULATION with your work!
Do remember to co-create with your users to scale the potential in a new market or domain!
Want to know more?
There are many other recommended literature as references when you are digitalising the data. We have compiled a deep dive for you who like to read up more on the link below.
DOWNLOAD FULL LIST OF REFERENCES
We wish you the best of luck digitalising your information and data!
Operated by Karolinska Institutet in Sweden
and Makerere University in Uganda