Engaging Health Care Innovators Using Open Space Technology and Social Media: Lessons From the AHRQ Innovations Exchange

Background:  The AHRQ Health Care Innovations Exchange (the Exchange) is the nation’s largest publicly accessible, Web-based collection of health care delivery innovations and QualityTools. It fosters the adoption of innovations, particularly for vulnerable populations (http://www.innovations.ahrq.gov/).

Program background:  To leverage the passions of innovators in health care, AHRQ kicked off an initiative in 2010 that combined an Open Space Technology (OST) meeting and social media before, during, and after the meeting. Based on the theme, “Open to Change: How Can We Deliver Better Health Care?,” innovators created the meeting agenda, convened break-out sessions, and identified major ideas on how to improve health care delivery surfaced during the event. AHRQ arranged to film the event to show how OST supported shared interests and mutual learning, During the event, AHRQ also arranged to film individual innovators who described the human impact of their work. These event and individual videos provided engaging content for the Exchange Web site and its AHRQ YouTube subchannel. A graphic recorder was used during the event to capture the proceedings in words and pictures.   The Innovators Event relied on social media and networking:

• A wiki allowed innovators to post information about themselves, get to know other innovators prior to the event, included reports from break-out sessions, and supported post-event contacts.

 

• Twitter displays throughout the meeting facilitated communication across sessions, attracted those not attending to express ideas or sentiments, and served to document the meeting in real time.

Evaluation Methods and Results: AHRQ assessed the event using:

• Innovator evaluations: Evaluations were very strong: 92% of the 63 innovators who provided evaluations would like to attend an AHRQ Innovator Event again and 94% rated the event as good or excellent across all dimensions surveyed: format, facilitator, ability to network, quality of discussion, and facility.

 

• Quality and impact of the video products: The six videos of innovators have won three Bronze 2011 Telly Awards and a 2010 Aegis Award. They were recently posted on the Web, and AHRQ will assess their impact and use. The video of the event is under review by HHS.

 

• Potential for future innovator involvement: Following the positive response, AHRQ formed an Innovator Steering Committee for the Exchange, which is part of a new initiative on innovation scale up and spread. 

Conclusions:  As envisioned, use of OST succeeded in surfacing and exploring a number of ideas on improving health care delivery. The participant-driven, free form nature of OST fosters extensive interaction (Owen H 1997) and, in this event, led to the discovery that innovators wanted to meet again and stay connected. Social media can powerfully enrich in-person events and help innovators to strengthen the connections made during the event and in subsequent AHRQ activities (Regerif 1998).

Implications for research and/or practice: AHRQ and other federal agencies are actively interested in research and best practice development on effective use of in-person meetings, drawing on social media before, during, and after events. Community creation may also result, spawning other opportunities for stakeholder engagement and contributions.