Making 'Hidden Innovation' Visible? A Case Study Of An Innovation Management System In Health Care

Innovation activities in health care are difficult to monitor and manage as they are often tied to improvements of ongoing practices and services. Finding a way to make 'hidden innovations' visible is important if innovation is to be managed strategically within and across hospitals. This paper analyses the development of an innovation monitoring and management system in the Norwegian health care sector. The system, more precisely a technical infrastructure and development of practices to support its use, is analysed as an 'inscription device'. The paper looks at whether the system has enabled an increased visibility of innovations, and whether this has improved the capability to manage innovation. The findings indicate that the system has to some extent contributed towards making hidden innovations more visible, and it has enabled sharing and learning not only among the hospitals, but also with external partners. However, there is still a limited use of the system, which relates to lacking abilities and incentives among staff to engage with the system, as well as the absence of common guidelines and joint understanding of the notion of innovation. This underscores the point that organisational practices need to be developed for innovation to be supported and managed.