Expectation to Innovate
By Matthew Pearson, PhD | February 24, 2024
Innovation can be a powerful asset, but often it starts with a fragile beginning. Creating a safe space to innovate can be the catalyst for providing exceptional patient-centered care and employee satisfaction. Employees who feel empowered are more resistant to burnout and more likely to go the extra mile. Innovation Hubs and Makers Spaces are environments that many organizations have begun to implement as a means to foster discovery and promote learning. In addition to providing patrons with physical tools, they often also provide training for working with digital resources, promoting an entrepreneurial mindset, and building a community of individuals who value creative problem-solving.
While working to finish my Ph.D., I would park across the street from the university library. It didn't take long to realize that every morning I was passing by the campus maker space, a small facility hidden in the retail space between a coffee shop and a sweets shop. I was so focused on completing my degree that I hadn't bothered to investigate the other campus amenities. I would never have even found the maker space if it hadn't been in my way.
My degree program was Interdisciplinary Leadership Studies, and the focus of my dissertation was investigating how to improve collaborative leadership in healthcare. The library was open 24 hours four days a week, and often I left the library well after midnight.
The burden of the task was taking a toll but I was too focused on the goal of finishing it to admit it to myself. "A candle burned at both ends gives off a lovely glow, but only for a while." My research included an investigation into how burnout affects interprofessional collaboration. The irony of burning out while researching burnout was lost on me at the time.
One day, out of curiosity, I stopped by the makerspace to see what the fuss was all about. Each day I made my way to the library I stopped in the maker space and lingered longer each time. It wasn't long before I was working on my first passion project an invention I had in mind for some time.
It slowly began to occur to me that splitting my time between my Ph.D. and my invention helped me to better endure the stress of the dissertation process. As I became more familiar with the staff and frequent patrons of the space, I learned of an Occupational Therapy professor who facilitated a class in which each student was required to produce an innovation that would help patients with limited range of motion better navigate the activities of daily living.
Throughout the semester students would come to the makerspace to develop their ideas. At the end of the term, each student would present the problem they had identified, and the solution they had invented, and demonstrate a working prototype to the class.
Many of these innovations were at best meager contributions, a jig to tie shoe laces or a contraption to connect a bra, but the fact that the students had been empowered with the tools to innovate was a massive encouragement to their studies. Yet, that is how innovation often starts, with a meager offering that catches fire.
Many of the students returned to the maker space to share their experiences with the class. Frequently the students shared how they remembered feeling empowered that they had the tools to innovate. Collectively, the stories of patients who benefited from the passion projects and the encouragement of engaged students didn’t think these innovations were small, they remembered feeling seen and that is the essence of patient-centered care.