The culture of the organisation can be described as ‘the way we do things’ and it is the values and beliefs system that drives behaviour. So, a culture that values innovation will display behaviours that enable and support; it is a culture in which people are open to new ideas, products and services.
It is possible to influence culture in organisations through effective leadership and carefully designed interventions in order to create and support a culture that is open to innovation. To achieve this it is useful to know your starting point, develop leaders, engage staff and reward and incentivise people for adopting the behaviours that you want to see.
We are committed to the creating a culture of innovation across the NHS. Health Innovation North West Coast is a catalyst for the spread of innovation, and to stimulate collaboration between companies, healthcare professionals and academics, our approach includes:
Coaching Academy - We deliver a variety of learning experiences for individuals and teams aimed at building a healthy culture for spreading and adopting innovation.
Culture Camp - a major two-day event in which we explored organisational culture from the perspectives of wellbeing, equity and innovation.
Innovation Centres - we support Innovation Centres which act as hubs for health, academic and industry partners involved in joint projects. Our role includes attracting major investment from European and other sources; and introductions to potential investors and other collaborators in healthcare and academia.
Ecosystem events - partners from health and social care, industry, academia and patient organisations meet to discuss topical issues in health and care. The focus is on improving health across the North West Coast and generating regional economic benefits.
Hackathons - involvement in large scale events uniting diverse industries and individuals to find solutions to healthcare problems. People from different backgrounds and expertise join forces to focus on a specific healthcare problem (eg. children’s health, patient care in care homes) Teams create innovative, disruptive ideas and solutions which are pitched to a panel of judges who score the viability.
Health Innovation North West Coast also runs regular events which bring together healthcare professionals, academics, science, industry and public contributors. Recent events have covered health service innovation, funding opportunities in digital health and the use of Big Data to promote healthcare solutions.