From the Officer’s Desk: Innovation

Within EMS and beyond, leaders must consider innovation a priority. After all, if there’s one thing the past 2 years have taught us, it’s the importance of being creative. COVID-19 has required adjustment of service protocols, disrupted supply chains, and increased hospital turnaround times. EMS officers and other organizational leaders must find innovative ways of doing business to ensure their organizations are prepared to adapt to challenges both current and coming. 

As EMS officers, then, how do we keep our organizations innovative? The first step starts with embracing innovation as part of your daily routine. For the EMS officer this means organizational innovation. Organizational innovation focuses on finding new and better ways to perform across the organization. Second, the organization must prepare its employees to see innovation as strategic priority. Third is making innovation part of the organization’s culture.

The good news is that many EMS officers already innovate within their day-to-day responsibilities. Examples include adjusting response models to the services being requested, transporting patients to alternative sites to alleviate hospital surges, assigning a different alert tone for confirmed cardiac arrests to improve chute times, developing a systemic assessment approach to expedite identifying STEMI alerts and reduce on-scene-to-12-lead times, incorporating video laryngoscopy, and upgrading inventory and distribution systems, to name a few.

Innovation Frameworks

The key to innovating successfully lies in improving the way things are done, not just change for its own sake. Innovation should make the organization more effective and efficient. To create a framework that reflects and supports this, consider the following.

• Clearly articulate strategic objectives that include where in the organization innovation is most needed.
• Promote research around improving processes and systems and searching for new ideas.
• Ensure all members have access to innovation tools that align with the organization’s strategic vision.
• Don’t give up on ideas or suggestions for improvement too soon, even if you believe they won’t add value.
• Promote and support innovation at all times—with candidate interviews, during team meetings, and when communicating with stakeholders.

The EMS officer must clearly articulate the importance of innovation across the organization and focus on getting buy-in from employees. Leaders must ensure team members understand the organization’s vision, where the need for innovation exists, and why ongoing innovation is important. In addition, EMS officers must support their personnel in coming up with new service-delivery ideas and improving current processes and systems, especially during challenging times.

Encouraging team members to take time during the day to focus on new ideas and/or system improvements within their section has resulted in value for many successful organizations. A term invented by legendary 3M boss William McKnight is 15% time. This policy allows employees to take 15% of their work time to brainstorm, daydream, or whatever it takes to focus on coming up with new ideas that improve the organization’s core mission. To value innovation, you must empower employees to pursue it.

A concept related to 15% time is blue-sky thinking. This is where team members are asked to write down as many ideas as they can for improving the organization or service delivery and place the new ideas on flip chart, poster, etc. The goal is to get as many ideas flowing and available for discussion as possible.

The other side of this is rewarding employees when they come up with an idea that improves service delivery or a new initiative even if the outcome doesn’t yield an improvement. The goal is to encourage employees to be creative and continue to work toward new ideas. This builds innovation into organization’s culture.

Innovation efforts must include organizational members who are directly involved with the activities needing change but also members from other work units. These individuals, being unfamiliar with standard ways of doing things, may generate some fresh and different ideas.

A Success Story

Post-it Notes is an example of how innovation paid dividends after being rejected numerous times. The adhesive was developed by a 3M chemist, Spencer Silva, in the late 1960s. Silva was attempting to develop a strong adhesive but instead created a weak one. When the weak adhesive was removed from a surface, it would not damage the finish. However, initially, there wasn’t much interest in the weak adhesive and its uses.

That wasn’t the end, though. Another 3M scientist, Art Fry, was finding it difficult to keep track of the hymns in his church choir book. He was using pieces of paper to keep track of each hymn, but the loose papers would not stay in place. Fry realized he needed a way to bookmark the pages with paper that would stay in place without damaging the pages. He and Silva worked together to create the square pieces of paper with weak adhesive, and the rest is history, although it took about 12 years before Post-it Notes hit the market and found great success.

This example clearly demonstrates a commitment to innovation by 3M’s leadership and reflects an organizational culture that supports it. Do not expect that innovation in any organization will happen overnight. Be patient, introduce opportunities, and encourage your employees to be creative.

What is the cost of not being an innovative organization? Organizations without innovation as part of their culture will find themselves not meeting customer expectations, falling behind their competitors, and, in the long run, potentially struggling to stay in business. As an EMS officer you must lead by example, and there is no better time demonstrate your commitment to innovation than now.

Orlando J. Dominguez, Jr., MBA, RPM, is assistant chief of EMS for Brevard County Fire Rescue in Rockledge, Fla. He has more than 30 years of EMS experience and has served as a firefighter-paramedic, flight paramedic, field training officer, EMS educator, and division chief. He hosts the EMS Officer Exchange podcast; has authored two books, including EMS Supervisor: Principles and Practice; and is a certified Lean Six Sigma Black Belt. Follow him at @ems_officer.