Adopting Innovative Technology Workshop

The Inno­va­tion Team at the CEIH that works direct­ly with inno­va­tors seek­ing to break into the health sec­tor with new ideas, con­cepts, and inven­tions, but often their expe­ri­ence is that break­ing through is hard. Equal­ly, the team works close­ly with pol­i­cy mak­ers, clin­i­cians and admin­is­tra­tors who strug­gle to bring new inno­va­tions into the system. 

To inves­ti­gate the fac­tors that deter­mine the suc­cess or fail­ure of an inno­va­tion, the CEIH host­ed a work­shop to inves­ti­gate what it takes to suc­cess­ful­ly con­nect the ​‘cre­ator’ of the inno­va­tion with the ​‘con­sumer’ of the inno­va­tion. It was hypoth­e­sised that there is a need for ​‘cat­a­lysts’ between the two that can influ­ence how deci­sions are made.

The Adopt­ing Inno­v­a­tive Tech­nol­o­gy work­shop fea­tured four indus­try experts, each with a unique skill set, per­spec­tive and expe­ri­ence base as it relates to adopt­ing inno­va­tion. Lee Mar­tin, CEO of Luther­an Homes Barossa spoke of his expe­ri­ences adopt­ing robots into main­stream prac­tice in an aged care facil­i­ty. Stephen Blak­eney, Nation­al Inno­va­tions Man­ag­er at Med­ical Device Part­ner­ing Pro­gram shared his sig­nif­i­cant insights into the process of ideation to pro­duc­tion of a med­ical device, unearthing the stark real­i­ty of inno­va­tion. Nat Peek, CPO, and Founder of Bio­mor­phik, an Ade­laide based health-tech com­pa­ny, offered a front row seat to the life of an inno­va­tor try­ing to nav­i­gate and inte­grate with the health sys­tem. Alas­tair McDon­ald, Direc­tor Strat­e­gy and Archi­tec­ture at Dig­i­tal health SA deliv­ered a detailed expla­na­tion of the real-world chal­lenges of adopt­ing new tech­nolo­gies into the dig­i­tal sys­tems of gov­ern­ment, includ­ing those that are war­rant­ed, val­ued, and needed.

The ses­sion opened in the con­text of the new­ly released CEIH Inno­va­tion Mod­el, as a way of recog­nis­ing the Stages and Steps involved in suc­cess­ful inno­va­tion adop­tion. Dur­ing their pre­sen­ta­tions, each speak­er high­light­ed their per­spec­tives rel­a­tive to each stage and iden­ti­fied a range of issues they felt need­ed to be con­sid­ered. The pre­sen­ta­tions were fol­lowed by a Q+A Pan­el ses­sion where the audi­ence and pre­sen­ters exchanged a num­ber of thoughts and ideas.

Con­ver­sa­tions iden­ti­fied that investors and fun­ders often have low finan­cial risk, and cou­pled with a nec­es­sary, but high­ly reg­u­lat­ed land­scape, the pro­gres­sion of inno­va­tion is often sti­fled. This can make gen­er­at­ing income for inno­va­tion com­plex, unpre­dictable and time con­sum­ing, espe­cial­ly in a con­text where Gov­ern­ment process­es can be slow and cum­ber­some, which fur­ther inhibits momen­tum of innovators.

There was con­sen­sus that the val­ue of an inno­va­tion is per­ceived and received dif­fer­ent­ly by dif­fer­ent stake­hold­ers, agen­cies, and con­sumers through­out the jour­ney, and that lead­ers set the tone for inno­va­tion through vision­ing, risk-tak­ing, invest­ing and advo­cat­ing at scale. Con­sumer engage­ment in inno­va­tion was iden­ti­fied as being crit­i­cal at all stages and that mul­ti­ple stake­hold­ers need to be involved in the adop­tion process at dif­fer­ent times for dif­fer­ent purposes.

Trust and trans­paren­cy of process­es and goals was deemed crit­i­cal for shared under­stand­ing and authen­tic col­lab­o­ra­tion and there was agree­ment that inno­va­tors and con­sumers both need to be able to piv­ot and adapt through­out the jour­ney. Key top­ics requir­ing fur­ther inves­ti­ga­tion were dis­tilled from the ses­sion and are as follows. 

1. Worth and Val­ue – there is a need to iden­ti­fy the val­ue propo­si­tion through­out the jour­ney of the inno­va­tion and under­stand when the invest­ment ben­e­fit is returned.
2. Author­i­ty and Gov­er­nance – there is a need to find the bal­ance between reg­u­la­tion and appro­pri­ate risk tak­ing in deci­sion making. 
3. Rela­tion­ships and Inter­con­nec­tions – there is a need to cre­ate a sys­tem that ensures col­lab­o­ra­tion and co-design through­out the jour­ney of the innovation. 
4. Sys­tems and Process­es – there is a need to iden­ti­fy and doc­u­ment the oper­a­tional logis­tics of pro­gress­ing an inno­va­tion into the health system. 
5. Data and Infor­ma­tion – there is a need to access and mobilise data to iden­ti­fy prob­lems, detect changes and mon­i­tor per­for­mance of innovations. 

Through the Inno­va­tion Col­lab­o­ra­tive, the CEIH will facil­i­tate ses­sions in 2025 to address issues gen­er­at­ed through­out the workshop.

Learn more about the Inno­va­tion Col­lab­o­ra­tive.