As a consultant who helps many companies in the healthcare industry I believe that there are many of the solutions that are being developed that can apply to other industries. Here is my little secret on how.

Overall, I help companies improve profitability and performance and help them become more operationally efficient. This happens to be in high demand in the healthcare industry right now as organizations fight to do more with less. So we need to look at ideas and solutions that increase innovation and provide for better results while not working any harder. Resources are stretched and being asked to take on more work, budgets are being frozen or reduced, there is a shortage of skilled resources and organizations are trying to maximize return on investments and minimize costs and government involvement is increasing. Does this sound familiar? Of course it does because these challenges can apply to almost every other industry.

The healthcare industry has no choice but to innovate and no choice but to make improvements because of all of the funding constraints. But that means that there are some remarkable ideas and partnerships being developed that other industries can learn from.

Just to give you two examples of this: private sector companies are partnering with public sector organizations to fund redevelopment projects and healthcare providers are collaborating with supplies to develop new technologies to improve patient outcomes.

There is a lot we can learn from what is going on in healthcare right now. The question is are we open to that learning?

There is an ongoing discussion on how to increase and encourage innovation. This is especially prevalent in the risk-averse Canadian healthcare space. In order for innovation to prosper in a marketplace, these conditions must prevail:

Understanding what innovation is

Innovation doesn't have to be a brand new technology or process, it could be an enhancement of something that already exists. By looking at the definition in a different way, it makes the activity of encouraging innovation easier to digest. Let's think about how we can make improvements. Some will be brand new and game-changing and others will be small improvements on what currently exists. Both are innovations.

Having a system that incents innovation

This requireds governments and industry organizations to create incentives for companies that innovate. These incentives could take the form of grants, funding, lower barriers to market access, tax credits or relief, or many other options. The key is that companies are incented to improve upon what is currently in the marketplace. This can also extend to those organizations that have the ability to discourage innovation-media, lobby groups, funders. These organizations often publicly punish organizations who are trying to innovate but may not have been successful, thus discouraging others from trying.

Having an appetite for risk

Organizations that are in the marketplace need to have an appetite for the risks required when chasing innovation. Not every innovation is going to be a success, so companies need to recognize this when embarking on an innovation. Listen to the marketplace, listen to customers and fulfill a current or future need to increase chances of developing successful innovations.

Developing a roadmap for success

Whenever you try to go from one place to another, you need a map to show you how to get there. Innovation is no different. What are the processes that need to be in place? What stakeholders need to support the initiative? What are the steps required to effectively develop, commercialize and implement new innovation? Without a common roadmap, organizations will falter at various stages by developing their own way of operating.

Understanding and taking the first step

One of the biggest roadblocks to new innovation is that organizations don't know where or how to start. To talk about innovation as a concept is a daunting task, so we need to break it up into manageable chunks. Understanding the first step in this initiative will go a long way to creating some forward momentum. Don't think of the whole journey, just think of one thing your organization can do to start the journey, then let the laws of physics take over (something in motion tends to stay in motion).

When Steve Jobs passed away yesterday, we lost an innovation icon. There has been no one in the last 30 years (or longer) who has done more for consumer technology. The Mac computer, the iPod, the iTouch, the iPhone, the iPad - each of these was revolutionary. People would wait outside Apple stores for hours to be the first to get their hands on these products.

He was an inspiration to a whole generation of workers and made our lives better with his inventions and creations.

We lost a great man with great ideas and his legacy will live on with that little logo we see on all Apple products.

Why is it that we have technology that allows us to have global meetings without ever leaving our home office, yet when we plug a laptop into a projector it never works? We seem to have started to master the technology of having live conversations with people from all over the world through a few cameras, microphones and TV screens. There are now temporary facilities that offer global conferencing for a rental fee, what a brilliant business concept as companies cut down on business travel.

Contrast that to the fact that we have all watched people spend 15-20 minutes trying to get their laptops successfully projecting on a wall and you see the dichotomy of technology. We are constantly innovating and improving on what we have, yet where we invest time and effort depends on the innovators. The issue of plugging a laptop into a projector and making it work has been an issue for years, why has no one fixed this problem? This has led to hundreds of hours of lost productivity while we try and get that image up on the screen.

No one has fixed the problem because there is no additional revenue in fixing the problem. Would you sell more projectors if you sold the perfect connection? Probably not. But you can sell the advantage of holding a meeting with teams from around the world with the ability to save significant travel costs.

Like everything else, innovations in technology focus on where the revenue can be generated, not necessarily where the productivity drains exist. If we could focus more on fixing things to increase productivity and less time on things that are cool, then technology would do a better job of helping companies improve performance.

I guess for now, we will have to stick with cool apps….