A Guide to Healthcare Innovation: Principles and Practice

Overview

Class Central Tips

This course reflects on global health challenges and the role of innovative solutions in addressing them. By engaging in this course, you will be able to describe the principles and key types of innovation in order to characterise the fundamental features of new models of care and technologies. This course will review the basic features and principles of healthcare innovation. You'll be examining innovations developed to address global health challenges, ranging from simple low-cost technologies readily deployed in resource constrained settings to more complex combinations of organizational, business model and technology innovations. Throughout this course, you'll also consider how adoption and diffusion is influenced by social, economic and political factors and explore what is required to get an innovation in to practice, effectively, at scale.

Syllabus

INNOVATION VS. INVENTION

You will learn the difference between innovation and invention and the steps involved in the process of innovation. You'll also be provided with an overview of the challenges in healthcare innovation, the difference between technology for health and health technology, and the ways an innovation can be categorised.

TYPES OF INNOVATION - DISRUPTIVE, FRUGAL AND REVERSE

You will learn about the different types of innovation that exist including disruptive, frugal and reverse innovation.

PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT AND COMMERCIALISATION

You will learn about design thinking, what is involved in the design process, what is required to take a product to market, and the differences between key roles in a business (e.g. CEO vs COO).

GETTING AN INNOVATION INTO PRACTICE

You will learn about diffusion, the strengths and limitations of Rogers' framework explaining the S-curve, and factors that affect the diffusion of an innovation through Rogers' and Greenhalgh et al.'s frameworks.