How Openness Serves Innovation in Healthcare? Comment on “What Managers Find Important for Implementation of Innovations in the Healthcare Sector – Practice Through Six Management Perspectives”

Abstract

The recent study of which enabling factors can facilitate the specific step of moving from idea generation to implementation in healthcare supports that managing innovation is a context-driven process that goes through six categories of change. While this research provides a general and rather comprehensives overview of what successful innovation work needs, it does not offer deeper insights into how categories of change can be operated in the context of accelerated openness in healthcare. I use the concepts of open innovation and open strategy to trying better understand how openness, in terms of greater inclusion and transparency, may or may not serve healthcare innovation through three theoretical questions: to whom, how and when to open up to foster innovation? Whilst diversity of knowledge, actors and systems are growing drivers of innovation, strategizing openness for more deliberate and impactful inclusion and transparency in healthcare management is key to co-producing better health.