Have you said “health innovation”?
Lately, the term “health innovation” has been spread widely in the mainstream press. But what are we really talking about? Innovation in the etymological sense is a change that brings novelty.
According to the French Ministry of Health, health innovation has three fields :
- The field most commonly considered is the one of medical innovation relating to therapies and diagnosis.
- Next comes the one related to the technological area that can create disruption. We currently talk a lot about artificial intelligence or big data.
- Last but not least, we have the field related to organization and impacts on people.
We can then talk about social or societal innovation, because it contributes to a profound and change in practices in society.
Technology has almost always an impact on people and organizations. It is up to the decision-makers and project leaders to integrate the necessary dimension of accompanying change.
Accompanying health innovation means ensuring a “holistic and systemic approach” that fully integrates the process, the health professionals, physicians and users, and is open to the patient experience.
- How is this new service or new app really used? How many target people are using it? How deeply?
- The best technological solution is vain whether it does not meet its users and propose them added value.
- In order to achieve a health innovation that is truly user-friendly, it is more than relevant to set up, from the earliest stages of its design tools and devices involving users, whether they are professionals or health workers, health actors and / or citizens.
The living labs are emblematic of this usage-oriented approach, by promoting the round-trip between the designer and the end user throughout the life cycle of innovation, by maximizing the co-design approach.