In healthcare, generating innovative ideas is rarely the challenge – ensuring those ideas are successfully adopted and spread is where the real work begins. In this blog, Nathalie Delaney uses a creative “test kitchen” analogy to explore how innovations can move beyond their place of origin and achieve meaningful, system-wide impact. Drawing on practical examples and insights from the West of England Academy, she highlights the importance of codification, context, and collaboration in turning good ideas into sustainable change.
In healthcare, there isn’t a shortage of brilliant ideas. Participants in our Academy workshops on creative problem-solving can generate hundreds of ideas in a short time using tools like TRIZ and Lotus Blossom . Yet across the UK, only a third of healthcare improvement projects spread beyond their original area.
The problem isn’t lack of ideas; it’s not having the right recipe to make adoption and spread happen successfully.
Codification
Every successful innovation has core ingredients. These are the factors that make the change work. If you remove or change these ingredients, the impact disappears. PERIPrem is a good example. The 11 evidence-based elements were essential, but just as important was how implementing teams worked with parent partners, across the whole perinatal team, and used data for improvement.
When PERIPrem spread to Wales and the Midlands, teams needed to know what to implement unchanged, and what could be adapted to local context. This process is called “codification.” For PERIPrem, although the 11 elements were fixed, how teams worked to implement those bundle elements in their local units was adaptable for them. Teams in Wales and the Midlands have experimented and created innovations which have fed back into the original PERIPrem units in the West and South West. As more people get involved, the recipe gets better!
Context
Once you understand your ingredients, context is the secret sauce. Innovators can’t always see what their context, culture, or environment contributed to the work until they scale. Different contexts may require adaptation for sustainability, even in the same hospital or area. Until we capture this tacit knowledge, the recipe is only half written, and others won’t be able to repeat the success.
This is why testing innovations in different settings is so important. New contexts can surface the hidden assumptions behind why something works.
“We learned that checklists are like toothbrushes: everyone wants one, but no one wants anyone else’s.”
Dr Emma Redfern, Consultant in Emergency Medicine, talking about the Emergency Department Safety Checklist.
How the Academy helps
The Academy helps teams write better recipes and develop their culinary skills. Change is rarely technical, it’s the underlying skills of communication, facilitation, co-design and behavioural change which make change happen. Health and care teams work in environments which are volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous (VUCA), and our Academy sessions provide test kitchens for people to practice their skills, test ideas, prototype and experiment.
If you have an innovation you are looking to adopt and spread, here’s a quick recipe you can try:
- Write down all the ingredients in your innovation. What makes a difference? What can be adapted for local context? (Codification)
- Write down the method. What steps did you follow? What have you learned along the way?
- Get someone else to try out your recipe. What does this tell you about what factors made this a success? (Context)
- Share the results and recipe with others! (Celebration)
If you want your good ideas to spread, don’t keep the recipe to yourself. Write it, test it, share it and refine it. And if you would like to join us in the test kitchen, the Academy is here to help!
You can read more and access helpful resources and toolkits here.
Posted on April 29, 2026 by Nathalie Delaney, Senior Programme Manager
