Five rules to reconsider innovation

BOSTON—Is the concept of an innovation center outmoded? That was the idea posed by Sachin Jain, MD, MBA, chief medical information and innovation officer at Merck and Company, who spoke during a session at the 2014 AMDIS Fall Symposium.

Innovation centers “take people off the hook to innovate every day in their jobs.” While these centers can focus on new ideas, they take “what should be the work of many and make it the work of the few.”

He laid out five rules for innovation.

1. Innovation activities should be organized around problems not the big concept of innovation. This “orients the energy on the right things. I urge a high level of specificity.”
2. Have the right talent in the room. The constant analogies to other industries, such as airlines and Amazon, “underrates the specificity of the problem and the depth of sociological understanding you need to have.” He said outside perspectives are important and valued but healthcare can’t spend too much time teaching these outsiders about the nuances of clinical settings and workflows. The right talent “raises the bar, raises ambition and builds credibility.”
3. Location is everything. Setting up innovation centers away from core activity can create an “us v. them” scenario. Creating that kind of barrier isn’t the intention of the new center but that’s often how it plays out, he said.
4. Measurement matters, but only the right measures. So much success is intangible, Jain said. “By focusing too much on what can be measured, we sometimes lose out on some of the impact that’s more difficult to measure.” He advised the audience to lay out a plan for measuring but to get early buy-in for intangible benefits because they “often are a lot more important.”
5. "Innovation" should be avoided at all costs. “The word can often mask a lot of organization dysfunction. Focus always on the work.”