Course Description

In this course, you will apply state-of-the-art innovation methodologies to improve health care for patients, clinicians, and organizations. Rooted in design thinking and human-centered design, this course guides you through the development of innovation projects from idea generation, through problem definition, testing, and preparing for delivery.

The course asks you to identify unexamined assumptions about your professional environment in order to gain proficiency in defining strategies for solving health care problems. These strategies include:

  • Engaging in contextual inquiry to reveal what others have missed.

  • Reframing problems to enable the development of high-impact solutions.

  • Practicing intentional divergence to challenge initial, unproductive concepts.

  • Testing hypotheses to generate data quickly and at low cost.

  • Designing experiences that catalyze the spread of desirable behaviors.

The goal of this course is to provide you with tools to develop innovative solutions to pressing health care problems, and to produce the types of early data that enable organizations to support, promote, and ultimately adopt those solutions at scale.

Specific Course Topics
  • Introducing innovation
  • Contextual inquiry
  • Problem definition
  • Intentional divergence and crafting a hypothesis
  • Rapid validation
  • Designing for delight

A segment on inclusive design and co-design by Sarah Rottenberg, from Translating Ideas into Outcomes.

Learning Objectives

After completing this course, you will be able to:

  • Identify opportunities for innovation in health care, and in your professional setting.
  • Identify unexamined assumptions about operational and clinical aspects of health care.
  • Apply methods for clarifying and reframing problems in terms that enable the development of creative and measurable solutions.
  • Select strategies for facilitating intentional divergence through frameworks for structured creativity.
  • Generate and dimensionalize a hypothesis.
  • Plan to test an innovation project’s assumptions using low-cost rapid validation.
Final Deliverable

A pitch deck is a key deliverable in this course.

Sign up to Receive a Reminder


Yes, I'm interested in this course. When enrollment is open, please send me a reminder to apply.



Once you submit your information, you'll be added to our mailing list and redirected to a new page on innovation techniques.