Cost Management: A Strategic Emphasis 7th Edition by Edward Blocher,David Stout ,Paul Juras,Gary Cokins

Exercise 16

Research Assignment: Service-Based Innovation; Strategy Obtain from your library (or course pack, as appropriate) a copy of the following article: L. McCreary, "Kaiser Permanente's Innovation on the Front Lines," Harvard Business Review, September 2010, pp. 92-97. One usually thinks of "innovation" in terms of new technologies or new products. This article focuses on a different type of innovation: service-based innovation. In a larger sense, it deals with the issue of improving health care delivery.
Required After reading the above-referenced article, answer the following questions:
1. In general, how does this article relate to the material covered in Chapter 14
2. Describe the Innovation Consultancy and its role in the larger organization, Kaiser Permanente (KP).
3. Provide a brief description of the "human-centered design" methodology employed by the Innovation Consultancy arm of KP.
4. Discuss four concrete examples of improvements in health care delivery (innovations in service-based practice) resulting from the method described in requirement 3 above.