The role of patients in responsible innovation process

Abstract

This master thesis is designed to deliver academic conversation and new knowledge on the innovation game plan and methods of patient-initiated innovation in the health care sector. The purpose of the study is to explore how the healthcare professionals receive and react to patient feedback. Later, what happens to those ideas, what flow they follow until changes are implemented, and also, does it involve the responsible innovation concept? The inclusion of the patients (the users) in the innovation process is a way of doing innovation responsibly. To achieve that, observations, research and interviews with healthcare employees of two different hospitals were conducted. The hospitals were located in very different environments, one in Norway and one in Brazil. Results were considered in a cross-case analysis and they highlighted the differences and similarities between each environment. Anterior studies argue that innovation is a broad perception which has been explained and practiced in different territories and situations (Pavitt, 2004). The data collected by this study will help researchers to prepare recommendations to both the health sector and leaders within the industry on what can be done to speed up innovation so that the health sector can fulfill its mission and interests.