Organizational Innovation

CERC’s research in the field of organizational innovation includes efforts to understand organizational leadership and culture impact efforts to implement health delivery innovations, promote integrative approaches to patient care,  understand and improve safety and reliability of health care organizations, and understand the role of information technology in organizational innovation. 

 

High-Value Health Care Incubator  The challenge of providing affordable, high quality health care to California’s large public-insured or uninsured population is a topic of intense interest to the public and policymakers.  Nearly one in three Californians (about 13 million) are enrolled in the federal MediCaid insurance program (MediCal) while two to three million residents remain uninsured.  The cost of public-funded health care in California is now about half of the total health spend in the state and rising rapidly.

Complicating the challenges of volume and cost of health care to the safety net population is that change in a complex system is difficult.  Innovation and problem-solving are tasks requiring resources, support and organization which compete with other priorities. The CERC High-Value Health Care (HVHC) Incubator is designed to support and assist non-profit clinics and organizations in the California safety net to make innovations that improve the health care they provide while lowering overall health care costs.  Its goal is to transform current care into care that is designed to meet the wants and needs of patients, thus improving the lives of the millions of Californians in the safety net.

Health Care Management  Dr. Sara Singer and her colleagues have recently focused on how to build a high-functioning health care team.  Using structured interviews with health care team members (including physicians, nurses, medical assistants, social workers, and adminstrative staff), the researchers tracked team performance over three years in five key domains: skill sets, communication, shared goals, understanding of individual roles, and perceptions of mutual respect and trust.

Human Technology Frontiers  Learning systems for health care workers to perfect safety-critical work.