Abstract
Amidst a large body of studies to stimulate, generate, and optimize innovation within firms, user innovation (UI) appeared at the forefront of the research agenda in various sectors. A phenomenon first defined by Von Hippel (1976) wherein users engage in innovation processes to fulfill their unmet needs and benefit by finding a solution for their unaddressed problems in the current market. Francesco Schiavone produced a well-written and informative book on the so-called UI phenomenon within the healthcare context and the role of patients as users as the driving force of health innovations in particular facing tremendous technological innovation within the last few years. The book’s aim is twofold: (1) delve into the role of patients as end-users of the healthcare industry and develop the patient innovation concept, and (2) reinforce the bottom-up approach in the healthcare system.
The COVID-19 outbreak that hit the world and health system over the last 2 years severely has shown us that users from different groups ranging from medical physicians, nurses, hospital staff as well patients, caregivers devote time and energy to bringing up life-saving ideas to tackle the pandemic. They pooled their ideas to innovate numerous types of masks and ventilators, and digital innovations such as different symptom tracking apps and outbreak tracking systems. On the other hand, we are witnessing a significant shift in health technologies such as mobile health applications known as M-health and telemedicine mostly built on the co-creation and co-design with targeted users and patients. The four chapters of this book spell out the angles of user-generated health technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and give details of how UI is a blueprint for innovation by expanding the value and efficiency of many health products and services.
The first chapter reviews the classical views of innovation performance and offers a taxonomy of various UI applications. The chapter starts by introducing the so-called paradigm of closed or firms-based innovation and later opens up the discussion of open innovation - a concept framed by Chesbrough (2003) - through which firms absorb both internal and external ideas for innovation and reveals a theory that is clearly in the stage-gate model of new product development. The author discusses how the concept of UI has moved over the years from being merely focused on users as the key players of the innovation process namely the lead users towards a more collaborative approach under the notion of co-creation, crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, etc. Furthermore, the low cost of innovation for users and users’ high expected benefits are introduced as the primary motives of users. Taken together, the chapter illustrates an overarching view of UI and its complementary concepts and brings up insights from various angles of the phenomenon.
In chapter 2, the author dives deeper into UI in healthcare by scrutinizing the peculiarities associated with this sector and convincingly argues about health technology, and the Internet of Things (IoT) that has been developing with the fast pace of digitalization offering great opportunities for medical devices and innovations in medicine. The most remarkable section of the chapter is the authors’ investigation of digitalization in healthcare and the resulting novel methods such as design thinking and their different adoption in healthcare like robots (e.g., Giraff and Baymax in Scotland), M-health, and web-based platforms. Noteworthy, the chapter spells out that the main groups of user innovators in the healthcare system are (1) medical professionals; (2) patients, their family members, and caregivers; and (3) other people not directly or professionally involved in healthcare. The author represents a series of evidence on knowledgeable and expert health professionals’ innovative solutions and devices known as lead users both personally and within communities. The diffusion of user-generated innovation has been the subject of debate for a long time (Cain and Mittman, 2002; Denis et al., 2002), the author emphasizes that the attention needs thus to be broadened to interpersonal relationships and personal networks among health professionals as well as the interaction between different departments of the healthcare organization to boost the diffusion and commercialization of user-generated innovations.
With the growth of UI in healthcare, novel phenomena such as patient innovation patient engagement have been brought to the fore transforming the healthcare system toward a more patient-centered approach rather than disease orientation. It bears witness to the demand for end-user tailored solutions and treatments in harmony with their sociodemographic, cognitive, health characteristics, skills, and preferences (Bul et al., 2020). Chapter 3 of the book focuses on “patient innovation” and their ever-changing role in decision-making regarding their health situation and care strategies by collaborating and sharing information with healthcare providers. The direct involvement of patients and their families and caregivers is a catalyst to improving outcomes, providing a better experience for patients, and reducing costs. The author emphasizes that users in healthcare do not watch from the sidelines and are involved throughout the innovation process from the design and prototype-creating phase to the distribution and commercializing phase through a fine-tuned network of communications among patients, caregivers, and healthcare providers.
The fourth chapter represents a series of case studies of patient innovation. The case studies provide a cogent argumentation about the role of technology or the so-called E-health on user-generated innovations. Two examples of the case are (1) virtual reality glasses that distract patients during chemical treatments innovated by clinical expertise having two family members with cancer. The second case study describes a platform and an app innovated by a robotic engineer and father of an autistic girl at home. The key motivation for this innovative idea was that patients could easily communicate with their family and friends outside of their homes and become socially active.
In summary, this book is easy to read and follow, enriched by many examples and case studies, a valuable contribution to our understanding of UI and the role of users in healthcare innovation. The book represents a handy resource for scholars interested in the UI paradigm and practitioners, that is, medical specialists, hospital caregivers, and non-specialists, concerned about health technologies as well as healthcare policy-makers.