By Rebecca Vesely
It seems like every week there’s a new press release about a new health innovation center opening up shop.
Since passage of the Affordable Care Act in 2010, which emphasized the transition from patient volume to value, innovation centers have been popping up all over the country. Becker’s Hospital Review has identified at least 50 hospitals with innovation programs.
There also is the federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation, CMMI, created by the ACA to test new models of payment and care delivery. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed last month, CMS Administrator Seema Verma announced a “new direction” for CMMI that would seek to generate more industry-led ideas. The CMS issued a request for information to collect suggestions, with comments open through Nov. 20.
“We are analyzing all innovation center models to determine what is working and should continue, and what isn’t and shouldn’t,” Verma wrote.
Here are some background and questions to ask when reporting on the issue in your community.
What is an innovation center?
An innovation center is a place where the focus is on discovering, developing and testing new models of care delivery or payments. Health care innovation centers typically focus on inpatient, ambulatory and home care models but can also include payment innovations. Some innovation centers feature mock hospital rooms, operating suites and patient living spaces to design and test interventions before putting them into real-world settings.
Innovation typically refers to digital products and new technology, but the term also can include applying the latest theories on patient-centered design and building continuous learning environments for clinicians and staff.
How do I know if an innovation center is productive?
A benefit of the innovation center model is that it can allow provider organizations to test new applications before introducing them to workflows or the patient experience. In the highly regulated health care environment, an innovation center can free teams to dream big.
The 2015 Commonwealth Fund survey identified competencies considered key to the success of innovation centers. These include achieving organizational buy-in, establishing a clear vision, setting priorities and having performance measures.
Innovation centers can require substantial funding and the return on investment may not be evident for some time. The Commonwealth survey found that the annual median budget of an innovation center was nearly $2 million.
What is the future of innovation centers?
More innovation centers are on the way. Nearly three-fourths of hospitals with more than 400 beds are planning or have already built a center, according to a survey of 317 hospital leaders released in September by the American Hospital Association (AHA) and Avia. Half of academic medical centers have or plan to have an innovation center, the survey found.
Half of the hospitals in the AHA survey said they were holding off on digital innovation because of lack of capital or fear they would create unintended operational burdens.
Innovation centers can provide reporters with a fresh angle on the health care beat, but they should be wary of being caught up in the whiz-bang of new prototypes that may never gain traction in the real world. With the significant investment that health systems are making in innovation centers, they are worth tracking regarding financial results and long-term impact on patient care.
Questions to ask about your local innovation center
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How do the center and its sponsor define innovation?
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What are its areas of focus? (such as care coordination, access, workflows, patient safety).
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How does the center decide in what to invest?
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Who are its partners? (such as private payers, pharmaceutical companies, device makers, private payers, software developers).
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What is the annual budget for the innovation center?
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What is the funding source? (top sources include internal budget, foundations and government grants.)
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How sustainable is the funding? (one-year vs. five-year commitments, for example).
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How is the center collaborating with other innovation centers to share findings and reduce duplication of effort?
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How will patients benefit from the resulting innovations?
Further Reading
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Survey on Innovation Centers (Commonwealth Fund).
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50 hospitals with innovation centers (Becker’s Hospital Review).
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When innovation centers fail to innovate (Forbes).
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Cerner teams with HealthSouth to launch innovation center (Healthcare IT News).
