Bill Klaproth (Host): This is a special podcast produced on site at SHSMD Connections 2023 annual conference in Chicago. As we talk with keynote speakers and session leaders direct from the show floor. I'm Bill Klaproth.

With me is Raena Zupan, Account Director at Futurety, and Steve Behm, Speaker Entrepreneur in Residence at Bon Secours Mercy Health. And we're going to talk about their SHSMD session, Building an Effective Research and Innovation Hub Within a Community-Based Health System. Raena and Steve, welcome.

Raena Zupan: Thank you.

Steve Behm: Thank you, Bill. Happy to be here.

Host: Yeah. Great to have you here and welcome to SHSMD Connections 2023. So, Steve, let's start with you. For academic medical centers, innovation is kind of baked into the culture, it's what they do. But at community hospitals, the focus is on patient care, yet their work on the frontlines can really develop timely, impactful, and exciting ideas. So, why is it important to change that perspective and cultivate innovation at community hospitals?

Steve Behm: Thanks, Bill. Yeah, I think it's important for a number of reasons. A lot of times, the folks that are out in community hospitals are the ones that are delivering frontline care on a daily basis, and really focus primarily on providing that care to their patients, and doing so in a way that's efficient, takes care of those patient needs, but at the same time allows them to have a career in medicine that has balance of life with their career life as well as their home life. So, very often, they're trying to get through their day, see their patients, take care of their patients, and be able to try and avoid what are referred to as pajama rounds at 9:00 and updating the EPIC charts.

So, because of the volumes that they're used to dealing with, I mean, those are the folks that take care of a wide variety of across the spectrum. And typically, unlike an academic medical center, they're not necessarily concerned with having assistant professor in their title. And I learned this the hard way when I was in industry when you're launching new products or developing new products, you may not always want to be talking to the thought leader at the academic medical center. Very often you'll find that their view of the world is a little bit skewed because they're not out in the trenches dealing with just the sheer volume of patients that somebody might see at a community-based health provider.

Host: So then, for a physician or researcher or clinician at a community-based hospital that might think, "Hey, I've got some ideas. I can help move the ball forward," it is important for them to speak out or try to find areas where they can do that?

Steve Behm: Yeah, for sure. And it's important from a system perspective to be able to have resources available for those folks. Because as I said, earlier, they're really focused on delivering care every day. Having said that, they are on the frontlines and so they see the problems first, and they probably have a unique insight to those problems more so than others that are a little bit further removed from the situation. So, because of that unique position, they're very often able to not only see the challenges they face, but then also, more often than not, they have ideas how things could or should be done better or differently.

Host: Sure. So then, Steve, what have you done at Bon Secours to create a roadmap to encourage, uncover and elicit new ideas.

Steve Behm: It's important to start out with the baseline and really understand where is the organization in its innovation journey. Have there been innovation programs in the past? How is innovation dealt with within the organization? Very often, I mean, everybody's got innovation in their mission statements somewhere. Everybody says they're doing innovation. And very often we get questioned, what is innovation? And you can come up with a thousand different definitions for that. But the ones that we try to focus on are ideas that are doing something different. So, it's not necessarily taking something that exists outside of the organization and bringing it in. We're really looking at taking what the current pathway, current treatment paradigm is, and doing something different. So, that's important.

And again, back to better understanding where folks are in that journey, has there been efforts in the past? Have you patented anything in the past? Is there a formal feedback program for folks within the organization? One of the things that we learned when we started our program and we started soliciting ideas from folks, we got a lot of suggestion box ideas. All of which are important, but maybe not be innovation. So, one of the things that we did early on was said, "Well, we're not going to have the innovation office be a place where ideas go to die." So, those people have already self-selected. They've identified some kind of problem and have come up with some kind of solution. It just may be an operational solution. You know, we don't have enough chairs in a certain waiting room or the signage isn't good or we need more handicap parking. So, we try to find a home for those operationally within the organization. So at least those folks feel like somebody's paid attention to them. Because it may not be this idea or the next idea, but once they have a better sense of what we're looking for, then we start to get some of those ideas a little bit more finely tuned. We've got some serial submitters that have really evolved their thinking over time and really are now presenting ideas that are challenging, but they're really going to solve a problem.

Host: Absolutely. So, you're welcoming those ideas and have a process or a plan in place. So Raena, how can other community hospitals identify, validate, develop, and launch these types of ideas that would position their health system and their clinicians as change agents?

Raena Zupan: Yeah, great question. Thanks. It's definitely not a one-size-fits-all approach. The first step is to have someone like Steve in-house or to have an innovation program in place to identify the ideas. And in terms of validating the idea, that can mean many different things, and the way that an idea is validated should be linked to the objectives of the innovation program, right? So, that objective may be, you know, we're going to roll out products that are wildly commercially successful, or the objective could be, we're going to position our organization differently or make operational improvements internally.

Our consultancy, when we partner with an organization to do a feasibility study or dig into a market, sometimes we're just trying to figure out, how big is this problem? We know it's a problem, but do people want to solve it? Do they perceive it as a problem? If so, the solution that we're interrogating, is this a solution that is scalable? Is it something that is a better mousetrap if there are similar products or solutions in existence? The nuts and bolts of how to formally do a market landscape or competitor analysis, again, is not cookie cutter and if a partner says it is, then that's probably not the right partner. It's very diverse depending on that. And I can maybe give a few examples to illustrate.

Host: Yeah, sure. So, you're looking for answers to solutions to not just, "Hey, I've got an idea for something." You're like, "Well, we don't really need a solution for that." You're paying attention to specific solutions and trying to cultivate ideas. You're paying more attention to those ideas for specific solutions or problems or issues. Is that right?

Raena Zupan: Well, it's twofold. So if an organization like the innovation team that Steve's been describing, if clinician identifies a problem and then comes up with a solution, a product validation study is tasked with validating the scope of the problem and then, of course, also validating the idea. If we figure out early on the problem isn't widespread, then we don't need to dig in too deep to the solution, because without the problem, the solution's not relevant.

Host: I got it. Okay. You said you had a quick example of that?

Raena Zupan: Yeah, absolutely. So, one study that we recently completed that was really interesting was Dr. Rodgers is his name, from Bon Secours Mercy Health. He has been a head football coach, he's got a PhD, he's an athletic trainer. So, he's been steeped in athletic training, sports medicine, et cetera. for decades. And everyone knows how big of a problem it is that athletes get concussions during practice and during games. So, the problem is well-documented and well-known. There's a lot of research now that points to a correlation between neck strength, a certain type of neck strength, and how likely you are to get a concussion. So, he developed a proprietary tool to measure isokinetic neck strength and cervical range of motion.

Host: Please don't ask me to say that.

Raena Zupan: I won't. I've had some practice. So, this is such a niche solution, but it's a big problem, right? So, we went down a whole lot of rabbit holes to figure out, in essence, who's going to pay for it, who's the customer, how big is the market. And ultimately, we absolutely think there's a market for it, but the method you use to figure that out is just going to depend on how niche the product is how many competitors, et cetera.

Host: Well, that's a great example, so thank you so much for sharing that. I appreciate it, yeah. And then, Steve, I would imagine this strategy can help attain, attract, retain, and support clinicians?

Steve Behm: Yeah, exactly. I mean, and that's part of what you need to do at the outset is really have a frank discussion with leadership in your organization and say, "What do we want the innovation program to do? What do we want it to be?" Because it can serve a lot of different efforts. Are you looking strictly for commercial gain? Then. You're going to leave a lot of ideas on the floor. And I think you're going to lead to some burnout over time because folks are going to say, "Oh, I sent him my idea and I never heard anything."

So, one of the things that we try to do is we look at innovation as serving many masters. So, one of them is certainly, obviously at the end of the day, if we can have a commercial success, that's great. Everybody wins. But there are other reasons why you do it too. I mean, if a lot of our hospitals are located in economically disadvantaged areas, so is there a community benefit to your activities as well? Are you trying to promote entrepreneurism, trying to promote new company formation, try to raise the standard of living of the communities in which you serve? Also, increasingly, we're getting physicians that are coming to us when we're interviewing and saying, "Well, if I have an idea, do you have the resources to support those activities?" and so, there's a whole number of facets that can be involved in a decision to go down the innovation program pathway.

Host: Thank you so much for your time. This has really been great talking about your session at SHSMD Connections 2023. As we wrap up, Steve, anything else you want to add?

Steve Behm: No, I would just make sure that you go into it with eyes wide open, and make sure that you're structuring a program that's right for your organization. Because I've seen a lot of efforts where folks were trying to duplicate innovation programs from one organization to the next. And everybody's different. So, you have to tailor what you're doing to meet the needs of your organization. And don't try to build it all internally, rely on outside partners to help provide some of that validation. Folks like Raena's group at Futurety are great for providing some external validation to our efforts.

Host: Absolutely. Raena, any final thoughts from you? Just wrap it up for us.

Raena Zupan: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I've had the privilege of working on a vast array of research projects like this. And one thing I'll say is, if you think you've got a great idea, don't go with your gut necessarily. You know, sometimes the stakes are high. And when you're looking for a partner to help validate the idea, I would just recommend, whether it's internally or an external partner, that they've got experience navigating healthcare innovations and the unique regulatory issues and so forth that go with it.

Host: Absolutely. Great advice and well said. Well, thank you both again. Once again, that's Raena Zupan and Steve Behm. And sign up for the SHSMD Connections Virtual Conference, October 20th, 2023, plus on-demand throughout the end of the year. The virtual conference will feature access to 50 plus sessions recorded from the September in-person conference plus all new live sessions. Just go to shshmed.org/annual to learn more and to get registered. And make sure you join us at next year's SHSMD Connections 2024. It's going to be in Denver. Hint. I'm letting you in on this right now. And if you found this podcast helpful, please share it on your social channels. And to access our full podcast library for other topics of interest, do you visit shsmd.org/podcast. And as always, thanks for listening.