Mission possible: open innovation in nursing and patient care services at Massachusetts General Hospital

Although front-line nurses and staff are uniquely positioned to identify the inefficiencies and gaps in care delivery, formal processes are not always in place to hear from those very employees. We established a scalable process that embodies open innovation principles, to broaden and distribute the innovation locus. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA. We invited 8800+ nurses and other direct caregivers to participate in organisational problem solving. We solicited employees to (1) identify pain points and develop solutions and (2) crowd vote to indicate which ideas they want to see implemented. 177 employees submitted 225 ideas, and 928 cast a vote. The 40 participants who submitted top-voted ideas were invited to develop a detailed implementation plan; of those, 27 submitted one. Four ideas emerged as winners. Formulating a clear call for ideas, securing leadership buy-in and generating excitement about the process were essential to our efforts. Challenges associated with opening the innovation process involved managing a large volume of participants and submissions, and providing on-the-go training to nurses and staff who were not used to being asked to participate in organisational problem solving.