Kaiser Permanente's Innovation on the Front Lines

The Innovation Consultancy, a small team within the health care provider Kaiser Permanente, practices an expansive, service-focused version of innovation that is both rapid and economical in comparison with the conventional version. The team's members observe how health care providers interact with one another, with technology, and with patients, and how the patients respond. They take photographs, draw pictures, write stories, and try to capture experiences from the point of view of everyone involved. During KP MedRite, a project to reduce the error rate in dispensing medication to hospital patients, the team asked nurses what they thought was wrong with the dispensing process. The nurses usually replied, "Nothing." But when given a chance to make self-portraits, they would draw themselves with sad faces and frazzled hair. Interruptions appeared to be the leading cause of errors-so one of the resulting innovations was a bright yellow sash signaling that its wearer was not to be disturbed. KP's Chris McCarthy founded the Innovation Learning Network to accelerate knowledge transfer among peers in the nonprofit health care industry. One promising process that has emerged, Inflection Navigator, helps patients who've received a frightening diagnosis handle the consequent urgent tasks-follow-up tests, visits to specialists, decision making about treatment and care-with the aid of care coordinators. This innovation and others like it arise from a brand of creativity that transcends the media version of the health care debate.

• Employee empowerment
• Information systems
• Change management
• Disruptive innovation