Agile Diffusion: Marketing for the Rest of Us

The average time from when a healthcare innovation is discovered until it is implemented in real-world practice is seventeen years.

Encouraging the adoption of innovative solutions for improving care delivery requires more than just sharing the results of a clinical study or a quality improvement initiative. Hospitals, emergency rooms, clinics, and other care settings are complex systems of unique individuals all processing information in real time to make decisions about patient care.

Agile Diffusion describes a framework not for simply spreading information, but for influencing human behavior so that sustainable change can occur.

Using real-life examples and leveraging theories from multiple disciplines, the authors:

• describe the field of Agile Science and how it differs from traditional change models;
• introduce updated theories of information diffusion and how the unique makeup of care delivery systems inform the rate of diffusion;
• differentiate between diffusing information and diffusing behavior when attempting to encourage the adoption of healthcare innovations;
• provide a step-by-step framework for how to diffuse behavior changes to reduce the time from "discovery-to-delivery" of innovative solutions.

The US healthcare system is in dire need of updated tools and techniques to accelerate the adoption of healthcare innovations. Become a change agent by learning how to utilize Agile Diffusion to improve the lives and outcomes of patients across the country.

Malaz Boustani, MD, MPH is an agile physician scientist who has led numerous studies funded by the federal government totaling more than $100 million, published more than 200 peer-reviewed articles, cofounded five tech companies, and developed the Indiana University Graduate Certificate in Innovation and Implementation Science. The one-year certificate is designed to mentor a network of Agile Change Agents who use agile processes to transform their organizations into agile organizations. The agile organization solves problems by generating innovative, scalable, sustainable solutions that are localized, implemented, tested, and disseminated in an agile way, which permits quick learning from failures and successes.

Craig Solid, PhD is owner and principal of Solid Research Group, LLC. As a consultant and health economist, he helps healthcare companies define and demonstrate value and make the business case for innovative solutions. As a researcher and author he has authored or coauthored over sixty peer-reviewed articles and multiple books, including Return on Investment for Healthcare Quality Improvement and Practical Strategies to Assess Value in Healthcare, as well as others in the "agile" series: Agile Implementation: A Model for Implementing Evidence-Based Healthcare Solutions into Real-World Practice to Achieve Sustainable Change and The Agile Network: A Model to Foster Innovation, Implementation, and Diffusion in Healthcare Settings. He lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota, with his wife and three children.

Jose M. Azar, MD is an agile and innovative healthcare executive leading quality for Hackensack Meridian Health, a $8.8 billion not-for-profit healthcare network in New Jersey. Dr. Azar has successfully driven multiple improvement initiatives accomplishing top performance in CMS Stars and USNWR. These include: developing a tool to provide timely, actionable data leading to sustained inpatient and ambulatory care outcomes; creating the Specialty Collaboratives, the first physician-based advisory board to improve care delivery systems; and creating the HMH Agile Institute to facilitate agile training and agile innovation. He assisted in launching a Care Disparities Council to accelerate diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in quality and safety. He coauthored Agile Implementation: A Model for Implementing Evidence-Based Healthcare Solutions Into Real-World Practice and The Agile Network: A Model to Foster Innovation, Implementation, and Diffusion in Healthcare Settings.

Richard J. Holden, PhD is an award-winning innovator and scientist. He is an international leader in combining engineering and psychology to improve health and healthcare, with over 150 publications and nearly $100 million in research funding. He is a skilled leader, mentor, educator, and engineering consultant with a passion for "better health, by design." He immigrated to the US from Ukraine and now resides in Indianapolis, where he enjoys the outdoors, indoors, and everything in between.

Erin Shadbolt, MSN, RN is a nurse and an agile healthcare CEO with a passion for creating healthcare that allows you to only leave your home when you go on vacation. She has a track record of improving clinical, financial, and operational performance in her roles across multiple healthcare systems and settings. With her completion of the Indiana University Graduate Certificate in innovation and implementation, she now leverages Agile Science to transform the care being provided to seniors, both in their own homes and within senior living communities.