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Our first article highlighted the need for healthcare providers to participate in the evaluation and selection of needle stick injury prevention engineered sharp devices. We talked about the need for comprehensive training and support for new device implementation and cost savings in lives and dollars with improved safety. Now we turn our sights to the phenomenon of “disruptive technology”, a term first coined by Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen in 1997 that has implications for how we view healthcare innovation.

Disruptive technology refers to innovation that replaces, or disrupts the established approaches to a product or service. These innovations often prompt us to experience a fundamental shift in the way we think about our health care and how it is delivered and “reshape existing markets by delivering a new, highly desired value proposition to customers.” A good example is the hand-held glucometer that has made blood sugar testing easy and accessible for millions of diabetic patients. Innovation can also involve, ”…using both new and existing technology in new ways.”

Innovative technology in healthcare is continually and rapidly evolving to meet a variety of challenges but is limited in its implementation secondary to regulatory requirements and the pervasive group purchasing relationships that govern commerce. In an article entitled Overregulation of Health Care: Musings on Disruptive Innovation Theory, the authors write, “Protected by regulation, health care organizations may use monopoly rents to prevent new business models from entering the market.” They add that, “…disruptive innovators have limited access to the regulatory process” such as congressional committees and senior leadership of a regulatory body. Once an innovation makes it through the gauntlet of GPO and regulatory hurdles it faces its toughest clearance, the clinician. Often vertically loaded and multi-tasking with grace and style the frontline provider who trials medical innovation may be resistant to what “disrupts” their status quo.

One “Futurist” for The Kaiser Institute in Brighton, Colorado believes that “We have to stop thinking of innovation as a luxury.” Leanne Kaiser Carlson has a Masters in Healthcare Administration and evaluates innovative strategies for healthcare organizations. She adds, “ Never before have we had this many ideas coming out of research and sciences and even front-line practitioners. Our problem is that our health systems have never been built to support the innovator or the migration for those ideas from research to practice.” Kaiser believes this is changing in nursing where some hospitals are creating a culture of change that embraces that which may mean improvements in patient care and safety.

Still, how can the culture of change on the frontline influence the acceptance of innovation? The answer may be a matter of degrees and rooted in the need for nurses and other providers to become involved in discussions and committee meetings. Moreover frontline workers have to be willing to trial new devices in the clinical arena even when their shift is already fast-paced and stressful. While some nurses claim that their heavy workloads don’t leave time for innovation the experts respond with “ just do it.” “…the most powerful time to innovate is also the time when it is most difficult.” With the right motivation and attitude we can and must learn new tricks and be the futurists of our professions.