Tutorials Innovation and Quality Management
HPI 4002
, Case 1: “We need to innovate!”
Problem statement: why are innovations (not) needed in healthcare?
Literature: book Barlow (2017): chapter 1 (mainly focus 1-9, but good to read the whole chapter),
chapter 2 & 6 (sections see Reference list), chapter 3 (box 3.1 as a starting point)
Learning goals:
1) Learning goal 1: Definition of innovation
What is innovation?
Many different definitions of innovation exist.
Key points in these definitions are:
• New ideas (invention)
➔ A new (or improved) product, process or service, or a whole new business or business model
• Exploitation
➔ The idea must be implementable and potentially value generating (i.e. innovation = invention
+ exploitation)
• Successful
➔ The innovation is adopted by the target audience
• New (scope)
➔ This is a relative term; it can mean ‘new to the world’, ‘new to the market’, or ‘new to the
organisation’
What is innovation (according to Barlow)
According to Barlow (2017):
• Innovation can refer to an outcome and it can refer to the process by which these outcomes are
developed
• Innovation has both a creative dimension (invention) and a commercial or practical dimension that
involves the exploitation of the invention.
➔ Only when both of these dimensions are managed does one have an innovation (many ideas
fail to make it beyond the invention stage).
Source: Lecture 3
2) Learning goal 2: What are the subgroups of innovations?
Different ways to classify innovations:
Barlow (2017) classifies innovations according to:
• Their scope:
− the degree of newness as perceived by the adopter:
o new to the world
o new to the market
o new to the organisation
o new to the individual adopter
E.g. a drug might be an innovation in one health system, but not in another
, ➔ Cooper: since the 1990s improvements and modifications of existing products
(incremental innovations) have grown substantially at the expense of innovations those are
new to the world and new to the market.
➔ Freel and de Jong: categorise innovations according to the novelty of innovation outcomes
and the extent to which innovation activities mean an organisation or company has to
acquire new capabilities (expertise equipment or knowledge)
• The form or application
− Products
Tangible (tastbaar) physical objects that are acquired and used by consumers (e.g.
an insulin pump)
− Services
intangible things where the consumer benefits from the service, but
does not actually acquire an object (e.g. a consult by a diabetes nurse)
− Processes
equipment, methods, systems used by producers of products and
services (e.g. the production process of an insuline pump, or logistic
processes within a hospital such as the registration system for patients)
• Their innovativeness
the amount of change compared to the current norm
o The amount of R&D (research and development), design or engineering effort that
has gone into its
creation
o The extent to which the innovation affects performance
Barlow (2017) discusses the model of Henderson and Clark (1990):
̶ Based on the innovativeness four types of innovations can be distinguished:
o Incremental
o Modular
o Architectural
, o Radical (= discontinuous)
➔ = Henderson and Clark: type of innovation
Two dimensions can be distinguished with regard to these four types of
innovations:
o Impact of the innovation on the components of a product, service or
process (so the extent to which the components are changed)
o Impact on the linkages between these components (so the extent to
which the underlying system is changed)
➔ Combination between Cooper’s model and the Henderson and Clark model
HPI 4002
, Case 1: “We need to innovate!”
Problem statement: why are innovations (not) needed in healthcare?
Literature: book Barlow (2017): chapter 1 (mainly focus 1-9, but good to read the whole chapter),
chapter 2 & 6 (sections see Reference list), chapter 3 (box 3.1 as a starting point)
Learning goals:
1) Learning goal 1: Definition of innovation
What is innovation?
Many different definitions of innovation exist.
Key points in these definitions are:
• New ideas (invention)
➔ A new (or improved) product, process or service, or a whole new business or business model
• Exploitation
➔ The idea must be implementable and potentially value generating (i.e. innovation = invention
+ exploitation)
• Successful
➔ The innovation is adopted by the target audience
• New (scope)
➔ This is a relative term; it can mean ‘new to the world’, ‘new to the market’, or ‘new to the
organisation’
What is innovation (according to Barlow)
According to Barlow (2017):
• Innovation can refer to an outcome and it can refer to the process by which these outcomes are
developed
• Innovation has both a creative dimension (invention) and a commercial or practical dimension that
involves the exploitation of the invention.
➔ Only when both of these dimensions are managed does one have an innovation (many ideas
fail to make it beyond the invention stage).
Source: Lecture 3
2) Learning goal 2: What are the subgroups of innovations?
Different ways to classify innovations:
Barlow (2017) classifies innovations according to:
• Their scope:
− the degree of newness as perceived by the adopter:
o new to the world
o new to the market
o new to the organisation
o new to the individual adopter
E.g. a drug might be an innovation in one health system, but not in another
, ➔ Cooper: since the 1990s improvements and modifications of existing products
(incremental innovations) have grown substantially at the expense of innovations those are
new to the world and new to the market.
➔ Freel and de Jong: categorise innovations according to the novelty of innovation outcomes
and the extent to which innovation activities mean an organisation or company has to
acquire new capabilities (expertise equipment or knowledge)
• The form or application
− Products
Tangible (tastbaar) physical objects that are acquired and used by consumers (e.g.
an insulin pump)
− Services
intangible things where the consumer benefits from the service, but
does not actually acquire an object (e.g. a consult by a diabetes nurse)
− Processes
equipment, methods, systems used by producers of products and
services (e.g. the production process of an insuline pump, or logistic
processes within a hospital such as the registration system for patients)
• Their innovativeness
the amount of change compared to the current norm
o The amount of R&D (research and development), design or engineering effort that
has gone into its
creation
o The extent to which the innovation affects performance
Barlow (2017) discusses the model of Henderson and Clark (1990):
̶ Based on the innovativeness four types of innovations can be distinguished:
o Incremental
o Modular
o Architectural
, o Radical (= discontinuous)
➔ = Henderson and Clark: type of innovation
Two dimensions can be distinguished with regard to these four types of
innovations:
o Impact of the innovation on the components of a product, service or
process (so the extent to which the components are changed)
o Impact on the linkages between these components (so the extent to
which the underlying system is changed)
➔ Combination between Cooper’s model and the Henderson and Clark model
