Our Storyline: The road to innovation in healthcare

The Ontario healthcare industry is a sector characterized by addressing wicked problems in a complex system. In this system, there are numerous stakeholders, actors, and priorities that are often in conflict. In this system where stakes are high, change is approached in a way that is measured and incremental, to yield expected results with low risk of failure.

Innovation is said to happen in times of chaos, and design thinking offers space for a divergence of ideas in which new discoveries can be made. Systems can be pushed to be reimagined and changed rapidly, though risks can be unexpected or unintended.

Understanding that the healthcare system can only handle a set degree of risk, and has a low tolerance for chaos, we feel the system might push itself, where appropriate, to foster an internal culture that supports creativity.

Innovating to develop and adopt new products and services that better meet the needs of stakeholders, pushes current thinking and practice to its limits, when done radically and transformatively. We feel that certain characterists of innovative methods can be appropriately incorporated into healthcare's way of working, to push the system within appropriate limits.