Open innovation contests for improving healthcare – an explorative case study focusing on challenges in a testbed initiative

Abstract

Working with innovation is important in several sectors and industries. One emerging arena for innovation is the arrangements of innovation contests. The aim of the paper is to describe and characterize an open innovation contest for improving healthcare, and to address the challenges involved. The research is a qualitative, explorative and interpretive case study of a Swedish region providing publicly funded healthcare. The conclusions show the need to generate and analyze data from actors with several perspectives in the contest. Challenges identified include defining and precisely expressing the problem, separating and delimiting the different problems and achieving a joint view. Other challenges were identifying and attracting knowledgeable participants, to consider incentives, and communicating the contest. In the collaboration stage, challenges involved the contest design, enabling knowledge sharing, managing various agendas, and being open-minded to new ideas; and finally, assessing whether the problem is suitable for open innovation contests at all.