Communities creating health: application of open innovation perspective

Abstract

Knowledge management in health is merely focused on the formal healing protocols, and patient data management despite of the broad knowledge base available outside of the formal medical domains, and an important need to integrate it into the health management systems. However, there is very little known on how to integrate this diversity of knowledge, and especially, direct it towards the innovation and co-creation activities. In this paper, we approach the health knowledge management from the community perspective, and aim to address the knowledge integration for open innovation across communities. 12 case studies were collected, which reveal the importance of trust, integrity and validity of the knowledge shared, and of the safe knowledge sharing and learning environments that would encourage collaborative innovation across different stakeholders. Finally, we propose the model for open innovation lab development in the hospital environment, which is being tested in the Clinical Hospital of the Lithuanian University of Health Sciences.