Translating Ideas into Outcomes

Catalog description

In this course, you will apply state-of-the-art innovation methodologies to improve health care for patients, clinicians, and organizations. Rooted in design thinking and human-centered design, this course guides you through the development of innovation projects from idea generation, through problem definition, testing, and preparing for delivery. You will identify unexamined assumptions about your professional environment to gain practice in defining strategies for solving health care problems. These strategies include 1) engaging in contextual inquiry to reveal what others have missed, 2) reframing problems to enable the development of high-impact solutions, 3) practicing intentional divergence to challenge initial, unproductive concepts, and 4) testing hypotheses to generate data quickly and at low cost. The goal of this course is to provide you with tools to develop innovative solutions to pressing health care problems, and to produce the types of early data that enable organizations to support, promote, and ultimately adopt those solutions at scale. Assignments help you practice each step, including drafting a plan for an innovation project and creating a short pitch for a spontaneous meeting with your supervisor.