Collaborative Innovation In Healthcare: A Case Study Of Hospitals As Innovation Platforms

Rising healthcare costs and vast business opportunities in health markets have resulted in a great demand to enhance innovation creation. However, innovation development in healthcare involves several challenges because of the fragmented and complicated context. Potential means to tackle the challenges include utilizing the concepts of open innovation and co-creation, which require organizations to develop new roles and relationships with multiple stakeholders. The study presented in this paper analyses a 12-month co-creation project where a new collaboration model for healthcare innovation creation was developed and tested by a hospital, research institute partners, and companies. We demonstrate how organizations experiment with collaborative innovation in the healthcare context, and what was learned from this experimentation. The study utilizes an action research approach and a case study strategy to produce the results and findings. Data were collected using researchers’ observations and notes, workshops, and interviews with key informants. The co-creation model applied can produce innovations that meet the end-users’ needs, but successful implementation requires careful planning, the creation of separate development paths for idea-type and more mature solutions, and the commitment of project participants.