Chapter 01: Defining ‘Innovation’ and the Role of an Innovation Officer
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Description
In this chapter, Ms. Kaul discusses her definition of the term “innovation” and describes the relatively new role of the innovations officer in organizations. She also discusses the need for this kind of role in the context of healthcare organizations.
She begins by defining the role of an innovations officer as “driving transformational change” and notes that her role as the first innovations officer at MD Anderson is evolving. She explains that a great deal of her work will involve planning how the institution can take advantage of information technology and medical devices to keep pace in the evolving healthcare environment and attract and serve “customers” well. She comments on using the word “customer” for patients.
Ms. Kaul says she is increasingly impressed with MD Anderson since her arrival in July 2016: it is “really a special place.”
She notes that the institution must become more “digital” in its operations at a micro level. She explains that innovation means using data and technology to optimize performance at all levels of the organization. She explains that the “holy grail” of innovation is the integration of all levels of data.
Next, Ms. Kaul explains her growing reluctance to use the word “innovation,” since it is so often misconstrued as something that is “new and sexy” and has become a buzzword even at MD Anderson.
Identifier
KaulR_01_20160224_C01
Publication Date
2-24-2016
Publisher
The Making Cancer History® Voices Oral History Collection, The University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center
City
Houston, Texas
Interview Session
Topics Covered
The Interview Subject's Story - Overview; Overview; Definitions, Explanations, Translations; Building/Transforming the Institution; Growth and/or Change; Obstacles, Challenges; The Healthcare Industry; Technology and R&D; The Business of MD Anderson; Discovery, Creativity and Innovation
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
Disciplines
History of Science, Technology, and Medicine | Oncology | Oral History
Transcript
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK, and the recorder is moving, which is always a good sign for me. And today is the 24th of February 2016. The time is now five minutes after 2:00 in the afternoon. And I am in the mid-campus building at MD Anderson Cancer Center. And today I am interviewing Rebecca Kaul, the Making Cancer History Voices Oral History Project run by the Historical Resources Center at MD Anderson in Houston, Texas. Ms. Kaul came to MD Anderson in July of 2015. That's right, it's July, wasn't it?
R. Kaul, MBA:
End of July, yeah.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
End of July, OK.
R. Kaul, MBA:
The last week.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK. OK, to serve as -- and make sure I get this right, because there are versions of your title.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Oh, there are?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Chief Innovation Officer and Executive Vice President of the Strategy and Innovation Administration?
R. Kaul, MBA:
I'm not Executive Vice President, I'm Vice President.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Vice President, OK.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Vice President of Innovation.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Of Innovation?
R. Kaul, MBA:
Yeah.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Chief Innovation Officer, Vice President.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
0:01:00 Of Innovation?
R. Kaul, MBA:
Yeah.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
0 OK. See, I told you there would be a correction there.
R. Kaul, MBA:
0 Leon's the EVP of Strategy and Innovation.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK, all right, Leon, as we're referring to, is Leon Leach [oral history interview], who I have interviewed in the past. This is for folks who may want to track down those connections.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Right.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
OK. Let's see, so today is the first of what, we're thinking there might be two planned sessions. So I wanted to thank you for your time. And I wanted to start -- I mean, normally I start with Where are you born, and but since this role is so new, I kind of wanted to just start with a little bit of a more general question, which is observing the fact that innovation has been a buzz word -- and you can tell me how long it's been a buzz word and an issue -- and then sort of tell me a little bit about how you understand that word, "innovation." Just explore that a bit.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Innovation has become a buzz word. It's making me want to change what we are, change the name or change what we're calling it. Innovation can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. And I guess, the execution of innovation translates into different spaces. At the topmost level to me, innovation is about driving transformational change, or developing transformational or highly-impactful inventions, or opportunities. So that is a very broad statement that could apply to any industry and pretty much a lot of different things. When you come to an organization, you have to understand what it means to that institution. And not just what innovation means, but what the role of an innovation officer means, because I think, for example, MD Anderson, innovation means a lot of things that aren't in the scope of my job. There are a lot of innovative things going on here in the clinical setting, in the way we care for patients. There's a lot of innovative things going on in the research setting and the way we make discoveries. But that isn't my particular job. Those are great innovative things happening here at MD Anderson, independent from the Office of Innovation. So distilling innovation down into an innovation officer or into a job has to do with what gaps are in that organization, or what the organization is seeking to accomplish with that role, and the type of person or skillset they, therefore, as it follows, based on what they're looking for, what skillset that person has.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
So what is within your scope? Maybe the question to ask first is what you were kind of discovering when you were interviewing for the job, or discussing the job with people, what was and what is MD Anderson looking for in this role of Chief Innovation Officer?
R. Kaul, MBA:
So funny you should ask, it's something that I'm still discovering.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
0:04:39:8 Well, I imagine given that it's a new role, it will be evolving.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Exactly. And I think any answer I give you today will be different than I'll give you in three months, and any answer I give you in three months will be different three months later, and so on and so forth.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Dually qualified. (laughter) What does the picture look like now in February 24th, 2016?
R. Kaul, MBA:
Right. So think -- and when I look MD Anderson and I look at, you know, my skillset and I look at what gaps there have been in this word "innovation" -- and "gaps" might not be the right word -- but MD Anderson does a lot of things really well. Like I said, it's got a lot of innovative clinical things going on, a lot of innovative research items going on. There's a lot of inventions happening in the area. Drug discovery, therapeutics. There's a lot. It's a pretty exciting place. The area that has -- is a big market in healthcare that MD Anderson has not yet tapped has been the area of information technology. And I would add to that medical devices, though it's probably secondary at this stage. And that might be my own personal bias, just based on my strengths versus really an MD Anderson thing, to be clear. I think tapping the technology space and starting to look at how technology is going to allow MD Anderson to keep pace and leapfrog the future of healthcare is key. I think with all of the changes happening in the healthcare environment; policy changes, reimbursement changes, all of the different models, in terms of the shift from -- the shift to value-based care, the only way any organization in healthcare can get there is going to have to be to start to invest deeply in innovative technology to start to harness the mass amounts of data that we've accumulated over the years, and actually leverage it through cognitive technologies to drive insights, to drive operational efficiencies, to drive financial efficiencies. Again, the research insights, clinical insights, to start to leverage technology to consumerize healthcare, because people need to reach into their pockets now, with all of the changes and all of the reimbursement models, and in health plans and things like that. We now have to start to think about how we're going to, as consumers, pay for our healthcare. And, provider organizations and healthcare organizations need to adapt to that changing environment and figure out how to start being more customer-focused. When I say "customer," I mean I'm talking about the patient, but I'm intentionally using the word "customer," because we need to take a page out of the book of other markets outside of healthcare that have been traditionally focused on, the customer and engaging a customer, dealing with the customer's needs and really being a customer service organization. And it's not something that healthcare organizations have traditionally done, because, you got sick, and there was one or two places you could go, and that's what your health insurance paid for, and you didn't have a lot of choices. Now patients, or customers, have a lot of choices, and there's competition, and there's more transparency in the pricing. And it's not that your health plan's paying for everything anymore. It's now you're paying for it, so now we need to be competitive in that market.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I've also had some kind of incredible conversations with people who have been with the institution a long time and remember some of the financial changes. I mean, for example, I was staggered when I was talking with some people who were remembering that in the '70s, and even into the '80s, there was no way of keeping a record of billing in certain departments.
R. Kaul, MBA:
0:10:13:1 Right.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
I mean, it wasn't -- I mean, MD Anderson started as a very small organization, kind of people have used the word, "mom and pop store." And so there was kind of informal reporting strategies. And then as it got larger, those things endured, even though they were completely out of date, just because it was embedded in the culture of the organization. And it took real intentionality to change them. But in the meantime, people weren’t really thinking about it. I mean, the providers weren't thinking of themselves as business people, they weren't "in business" with customers.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Right.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
With customers. It was something else.
R. Kaul, MBA:
And I would say that, a doctor listening to this conversation would not like my usage of using the word, "customer," when it comes to a patient. But like I said, I'm kind of using that intentionally, because we need to start thinking that way. We need to start consumerizing healthcare so that it is a true customer service, or, endeavor. But the only way we can actually scale that is not just through the wonderful things we do, which I'm more and more impressed every day with the way I see MD Anderson engaging patients and talking to them, and the way our --the whole organization, whether it be, administration or clinical, the way that people talk to the patients, help the patients, care for the patients has been a really wonderful experience to watch since I've been here at MD Anderson, it's been unique. And, it really is a special place. But in time, we are going to need to scale that model and scale our engagement with people in a way that's consistent with how, human beings have expected to interact, which has actually become digital. Right? There's nothing anyone does in their life that doesn't require an app or a phone call, or an email or a text, or a whatever it is. But it's become part and parcel to our lives, right? So we can't -- in healthcare, we can't ignore that. We need to jump in and, become part of that experience. It has to be an extension of our operation. We have to start to extent and scale through the, the digital platforms. In a way that makes sense. In a way that's not noise, because a lot of that stuff, there's hundreds and thousands of healthcare applications in the app stores, but a lot of its noise. So how do we develop an experience that's consistent with the way we do it on a human level, face-to-face? How do we take that face-to-face exceptional behavior, and scale it into a digital experience? So I think that that is a big opportunity for us, and starting to think about, areas where we can innovate. I think operationally, there are huge opportunities. Starting to think about the different shared risk models, and transparency in our cost and our quality, and starting to think about ways we can start to use data and technology to not just create the transparency, but then to optimize our performance. So I think, there's a tremendous opportunity there. Of course it all comes down to our data. It all comes down to leveraging our data in a transformational way to accomplish these outcomes.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
0:14.22.7 And when you say, "data," what are the various areas of data you're referring to here?
R. Kaul, MBA:
0:14.28.6 Pretty much everything. There's research data, there's clinical data, there's operations data, there's billing data. There's financial data, there's, cost data. There's, pretty much everything. And that holy grail is the integration of it all. It's not one silo of data, it's the way in which we can create correlations across it to learn, and thereby, better serve our patients.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
And you get sleep at night? (laughter)
R. Kaul, MBA:
I actually sleep very well, knowing that I have a meaningful mission to, march to.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
No, I'm just, particularly with these integrative challenges, which can be very real and be laden with serious obstacles in a huge, huge institution, I mean, that's a real challenge. So probably fairly intellectually intriguing too, I imagine.
R. Kaul, MBA:
0:15.36.9 It is. It is.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Yeah? Yeah. I wanted to go back just for a second to your comment that you were kind of thinking it would be good to lose the word, "innovation." Why were you thinking of swapping out that term? What's the reason?
R. Kaul, MBA:
Because everybody's using it now, and it's diluted what it means. People seem to tag this word "innovation" to what I would consider incremental things. Someone buys an iPhone, and they say, "I'm innovative because I bought an iPhone." That's just buying an off-the-shelf technology, that's not inventing anything or doing anything new. It would be how we would use it in a way that actually impacted someone's life that would be innovative. But people don't seem -- I would say people associate the word "innovation" with what they perceive to be maybe cool and sexy, as opposed to what's actually driving value and making a difference. And so I define innovation as something that actually makes a transformational difference in what we do; truly thinking outside the box, not just, following technology trends that already exist. So, , anytime anything becomes a buzz word or becomes overused, because people want to -- they think if they use that word it suddenly makes something more important than it is, but then what it really is doing is diluting the meaning of that word. And every year in healthcare technology, we have a new buzz word, so in the past, everything was interoperability, right?
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interoperability?
R. Kaul, MBA:
Interoperability.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Oh, hmm, never heard that one.
R. Kaul, MBA:
Oh, there was a year that every vendor on the market had the word "interoperability." Then every vendor on the market had "population health." What they actually did was vastly different across all the vendors, but, it just became "the word." And then what happens is, then the word becomes meaningless, because everybody's using it for vastly different things, so then you don't really know what they're actually talking about, and then it becomes a useless term. So the same thing's happening with this word "innovation." It's becoming meaningless.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Well, eventually I'm going to ask you for what you think might be a good substitute.
R. Kaul, MBA:
0:18:34:1 I don't know.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
You don't know at this point?
R. Kaul, MBA:
I don't know at this point. But I'm just saying it's become a buzz word, so now it's becoming even across this institution I hear people using this word so much, and they'll be, like, "Oh, there's this innovation group and that innovation group," and that -- are they all working with you? And I'm thinking, I don't even know these groups and I think everybody’s just -- you know.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting.
R. Kaul, MBA:
And some of them really are doing great innovative work that maybe is not in the scope of this particular job, back to my original statement of this job, how you define the job isn't necessarily how you define the term. But it's also just in the market what you see people tacking on.
T. A. Rosolowski, PhD:
Interesting. Well, it'll certain come after that. Do you want to shift topics a little bit now and talk about your background?
R. Kaul, MBA:
Sure.
Recommended Citation
Kaul, Rebecca MBA and Rosolowski, Tacey A. PhD, "Chapter 01: Defining ‘Innovation’ and the Role of an Innovation Officer" (2016). Interview Chapters. 1260.
https://openworks.mdanderson.org/mchv_interviewchapters/1260
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Open
