Implementing Innovations in Health Care Settings: Example of the Surgical Safety Checklist

Innovation — a new idea, practice, or object — is necessary if we want to provide an adequate answer to the ever-increasing complexity of care. Although many of these innovations demonstrate promising results within the study context, health care providers and the public, are increasingly aware promising research results do not easily translate into improved daily health care practice. The fact is that about 70% of all change initiatives fail. This proceeding paper provides a narrative overview of the most important frameworks regarding the implementation of innovations in health care settings. Surgical safety checklists are used as an example to illustrate the concepts related to implementation. As the existing knowledge is not conclusive and does not provide clear solutions for the implementation problem, it is difficult to make solid recommendations. Instead we — based on existing frameworks and complex adaptive systems theory — provide a assumption to foster future research. Keyword(s): implementation; change management; innovation; patient safety; checklists