Creativity and Innovation in Health
1. At the recent Creative Communities conference in Queensland, Margret Meagher, the founder of the Arts and Health Organisation, presented a paper outlining the benefits of using arts in the healing professions. After a little research I was delighted to find that this is an area of huge growth, as government departments and organisations have begun to fervently embrace the use of arts-based practices, like theatre, in health practices.
Meagher is also the convenor of the 2010 International Arts and Health Conference being held again this year in Melbourne, 16 – 19 November. www.artsandhealth.org
2. In a Whole New Mind, Dan Pink, describes the trend in medical schools establishing programs that incorporate acting and visual arts to hone in on doctors’ sensitivities when dealing with patients. The examples include doctors at UCLA Medical School staying overnight in hospitals acting being patients in order to develop empathy for the people they treat. Similarly, through the study of paintings, doctors at Yale School of Medicine become more adept at noticing details in patients’ conditions.
3. An article in September’s Harvard Business Review describes the work of Kaiser Permanente’s Innovation Consultancy Team. The team was set up in a commitment to spread a culture of innovation in the area of service through using IDEO’s concept of ‘human-centred design’, based on simply observing staff in action.
To date they have a number of successful projects to showcase. The first is MedRite – an initiative to reduce medication errors which has saved the health company almost 1m, as well as increasing both patient safety and physician peace of mind. The Nurse Knowledge Exchange features the involvement of patients and new software in reducing both the time and the accuracy of the between-shifts patient information exchange. Both innovations were simple and cost-effective. Read more soon @ www.erikajacobson.com.au
One Response to “Creativity and Innovation in Health”
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The next time I read a blog, I hope that it doesnt disappoint me as much as this one. I mean, I know it was my choice to read, but I actually thought youd have something interesting to say. All I hear is a bunch of whining about something that you could fix if you werent too busy looking for attention.