Creating a climate that catalyses healthcare innovation in the United Kingdom - learning lessons from international innovators

Background The United Kingdom (UK) lags behind other high-income countries in relation to technological innovation in healthcare. We sought to understand what national strategies can help to promote a climate for innovation in healthcare settings by extracting lessons for the UK from international innovators. Methods We undertook a series of qualitative semi-structured interviews with senior international innovators from a range of health related policy, care/service delivery, commercial and academic backgrounds. Thematic analysis helped to explore how different factors could facilitate/inhibit innovation at individual, organisational and wider societal levels. Results We conducted 14 interviews and found that a conducive climate for healthcare innovation consisted of national/regional strategies stimulating commercial competition, promoting public/private relationships, and providing central direction (e.g. incentives for adoption and regulation through standards) without being restrictive. Organisational attitudes with a willingness to experiment and to take risks were also seen as important, but a bottom-up approach to innovation, based on the identification of clinical need, was seen as a crucial first step to construct relevant national policies. Conclusions There is now a need to create mechanisms through which frontline National Health Service staff can raise ideas/concerns and suggest opportunities for improvement, and then build national innovation environments that seek to address these needs. This should be accompanied by creating competitive health technology markets to stimulate a commercial environment that attracts high-quality health information technology experts and innovators working in partnership with staff and patients.