Defining Innovation
Garfield Center takes a broad view of innovation including activities that improve or transform health care services for our members and how we spread those innovations.
The Garfield Center’s funding sponsors, National Facilities Services (NFS), Information Technology (KP-IT), and Patient Care Services (PCS), run activities that look at the intersection of work flow, technology, and design. The examples below illustrate the different ways innovation occurs at the Garfield Center through improvement, spread (diffusion), and transformation.
Improve |
Spread |
Transform |
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Challenge:
Design new exam rooms for KP nurses, doctors and medical assistants. |
Challenge:
Share best practices of how rapid response teams function in KP medical centers. |
Challenge:
Determine how we can provide options for convenient and affordable care to our members with
chronic health conditions. |
Innovative Activity:
KP architects cleverly designed exam room prototypes made out of movable plywood
partitions. Clinically active nurses, medical assistants, and physicians joined with IT experts to physically experience the designs. |
Innovative Activity:
A team of clinicians re-enacted a rapid response team at the Garfield Center in a
realistic, simulated patient care environment. After the
simulation in a debrief, participants shared what went
well and what could be improved. |
Innovative Activity:
KP-IT evaluates new technologies in the Garfield Center’s home environment. These technologies allow our members to monitor their conditions, access health education materials and
communicate with their providers from the comfort of
their homes.
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Results:
Architects were able to rapidly try out several configurations which lead them a solution earlier. |
Results:
One hundred participants from different KP regions (including clinically active nurses, physicians and respiratory therapists from KP medical centers), were able to “see” best practices and share different
viewpoints. Participants took home concrete ideas to improve rapid response teams in their own medical centers. |
Results:
KPIT is able to conduct early stage testing to determine which technologies are promising for our
members in the next 3-5 years. |
