A Framework for Successful Adoption of Surgical Innovation

BACKGROUND: Innovation Adoption Frameworks are applied in healthcare industry, but surgical innovation does not follow the same models as medical innovation and it is not always adopted fully by members of the team. PURPOSE: The aim of this paper is to develop a framework for successful adoption of surgical innovation. RESEARCH DESIGN: This paper is inspired by design thinking. Based on a pragmatic research philosophy, a mixed method approach was selected including semi-structured interview and focus groups, following a questionnaire. STUDY SAMPLE: A sample of five specialists in the field (doctors and managers) were selected for interview. Six focus groups were conducted. On average, five people were involved in each focus groups, 30 participants in total, including consultants, senior and junior ward nurses, health care assistant (HCA), cancer nurse specialist, stoma nurses, theatre senior and junior staff. DATA COLLECTION/ANALYSIS: Qualitative data was collected and analyzed using Thematic Analysis. RESULTS: Following a design thinking approach; firstly, an initial Surgical Adoption Model was proposed, based on the existing literature. Then, the challenges, processes and teams involved in Robotic Surgery adoption, an existing surgical innovation in a local NHS hospital, were explored. Five main themes were extracted from interviews and focus groups data - ‘Innovation Perception’, ‘Guilty vs. Undervalued’, ‘Knowledge is Power’, ‘Ex-novation’ and ‘Facilitators and Super-users’. This resulted into the development of an adapted Surgical Innovation Framework. CONCLUSIONS: The Surgical Innovation Framework incorporated the themes extracted from the data. The framework is unique within the field of surgical innovation and is designed with the aim of improving surgical innovation adoption success rate. Future research can trial the framework to evaluate its effectiveness.