Commission on Excellence and Innovation in Health

Adopting Innovation Symposium

16 June 2025

Unpack­ing the Black Box of Inno­va­tion in Health 

In 2024, the CEIH’s Inno­va­tion Col­lab­o­ra­tive host­ed the Adopt­ing Inno­v­a­tive Tech­nol­o­gy Work­shop to inves­ti­gate the ​“black box” of inno­va­tion and iden­ti­fy the main chal­lenges of adopt­ing inno­va­tion into the health sys­tem. Tak­ing insights from the Work­shop, on Wednes­day the 11th of June 2025 the Com­mis­sion on Excel­lence and Inno­va­tion in Health host­ed the ​‘Inno­va­tion Adop­tion Sym­po­sium’ at the South Aus­tralian Health and Med­ical Research Insti­tute (SAHM­RI).

The Sym­po­sium attract­ed a diverse audi­ence whose expe­ri­ence and exper­tise rep­re­sent­ed the most influ­en­tial per­sonas known to have impact on the adop­tion of inno­va­tion with­in the health­care sys­tem. Their col­lec­tive task was to inves­ti­gate the fol­low­ing key themes to emerge from the workshop. 

  • Worth and Val­ue: How is the val­ue of an inno­va­tion assessed as being wor­thy of invest­ment? Who deter­mines the val­ue of an idea? 
  • Author­i­ty and Gov­er­nance: How is inno­va­tion adop­tion gov­erned, and what deci­sion-mak­ing cri­te­ria is used to pre­vent or progress an innovation?
  • Rela­tion­ships and Inter­con­nec­tions: How does con­nec­tiv­i­ty impact inno­va­tion adop­tion, and what rela­tion­ships are required for a suc­cess­ful journey? 
  • Sys­tems and Process­es: What process­es are required to mobilise inno­va­tion, and what sys­tems enable more suc­cess­ful adoption? 

Using the CEIH Inno­va­tion Mod­el method­ol­o­gy for con­text, the Sym­po­sium crit­i­cal­ly analysed the cur­rent state of inno­va­tion devel­op­ment and deploy­ment across the sys­tem, and col­lab­o­ra­tive­ly pro­posed solu­tions to address iden­ti­fied chal­lenges and cur­rent bar­ri­ers. The con­ver­sa­tions were stim­u­lat­ing, inno­v­a­tive and action ori­en­tat­ed, con­firm­ing our state has excep­tion­al tal­ent and expe­ri­ence in this space. 

If you would like to know more about the Sym­po­sium or the Inno­va­tion Col­lab­o­ra­tive, you can check out our web­site here or email us at CEIH.​Innovation@​sa.​gov.​au