Innovating Care From the Front Line: Mexico’s Olimpiadas De La Innovación

Innovating Care From the Front Line: Mexico’s Olimpiadas De La Innovación

Covering 72 million citizens, the Mexican Institute of Social Security (IMSS) is the largest provider of health and social services in Latin America. From specialists in urban tertiary care centers, to caregivers serving remote and rural populations, IMSS relies on its 430 thousand employees to plan and deliver high quality services in over five thousand primary care clinics and 400 hospitals.

And while every large health system strives to be innovative, few take things to the level IMSS does in ensuring that the staff actually delivering care are at the center of a nationwide initiative to invent and incubate innovative solutions locally that are then evaluated and scaled across an entire country.

Sponsored by Dr. José de Jesús Arriaga Dávila, Director of de Prestaciones Medicas and the IMSS leadership team, the Innovation Olympics is an initiative that capitalizes on the human talent within IMSS through a contest of innovative ideas in various professional fields and disciplines to improve patient care. Categories for innovation include technology, process improvement and health & medical education.

A key to success is IMSS’s recognition that the best ideas for change often come from practicing clinicians and staff who often lack the means, support and sponsorship for incubating new ideas.

The program supports projects that can be deployed at the local, regional and national level. Beyond the annual gathering, year-round systems are in place to encourage teams to organize and submit applications for projects, provide for internal and external mentoring opportunities and provides access to other online resources.

It was privilege to be part of the second edition of Mexico’s Olimpiadas De La Innovación. A gathering in Mexico City of several thousand members of the IMSS staff heard from a variety of speakers on process change, technology and knowledge transfer. There is a clear focus within IMSS on facilitating a culture shift towards innovation at the institute which is driven by self-organized teams with the insights and talent to improve the quality and efficiency of care for all citizens.

Go here to learn more about the projects submitted and incubated from last year.

Go here to view my keynote on use of Big Data and Analytics to innovate healthcare.

Special thanks to Dr. José de Jesús Arriaga Davila and to Microsoft's Team Mexico for their great insights and hospitality.

T.


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