Innovation has long shaped healthcare but the art of adopting innovation remains a challenge. In the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), a system founded on the principles of continuous improvement and equitable care, the ability to adopt and spread innovation is essential for delivering better patient outcomes, improving efficiency and addressing evolving health needs. Despite a multitude of frameworks, barriers remain entrenched for those who facilitate adoption. As part of work to develop a toolkit on innovative organisational culture, the NHS InInSites (Innovation Sites) programme sought to understand the optimal determinants of successful innovation adoption from the perspective of those facilitating the process. What do those who facilitate innovation in publicly-funded healthcare systems think are the key factors in successful adoption? Through a qualitative analysis of 27 survey responses from staff working in innovation roles, this work examined what enables successful adoption of innovations, beyond the barriers and challenges that are often cited. Seven common themes arose: engagement and support from clinicians and other stakeholders; sufficient (and ring-fenced) funding; support from senior leaders; tangible impact; clear innovation need; practical enablers and a supportive culture. A number of key learnings and tensions or contradictions were outlined, including the challenge of yearly funding cycles and siloed funding pots hindering longer-term impact. It appears that in publicly-funded healthcare systems, like the NHS, financial and structural enablers have greater significance for driving adoption than individual factors. As such, future efforts to promote innovation within such systems should focus on delivering sustained funding, aligning policy and processes and fostering more supportive organisational culture to accelerate innovation adoption.
McKenzie et al. (Mon,) studied this question.