Perspectives on managing innovation readiness in long-term care: a Q-methodology study

The scarcity of resources in long-term care demands more than ever that organizations in this sector are prepared for innovation to ensure affordable access to care for older adults. Organizations that are innovation ready are more capable of implementing innovations. Therefore, a better understanding of how stakeholders view innovation readiness in long-term care can provide actionable strategies to enhance their innovative capacities. 'Innovation readiness' indicates the level of maturity of an organization to succeed in any type of innovation. Our study explored perspectives among stakeholders on what they consider important for organizations in long-term care for older adults to be innovation ready.

Q-methodology, a mixed-methods approach, was used to investigate the perspectives of 30 stakeholders connected to long-term care for older adults in the Netherlands: academics, (top)management, innovation managers, client representatives, staff, and consultants. Stakeholders were asked to rank 36 statements on innovation readiness on importance. Statements were extracted from literature research and qualitative interviews. Thereafter in the post-interviews stakeholders explained their ranking and reflected on the statements. By-person factor analysis was used to identify clusters in the ranking data. Together with the qualitative data from follow-up interviews, these clusters were interpreted and described as perspectives of the stakeholders.

Four distinct perspectives were identified on what they consider important for innovation readiness in long-term care: (1) 'supportive role of management' (2) 'participation of the client (system) and employees' (3) 'setting the course and creating conditions' and (4) 'structuring decision-making, roles and responsibilities'. The 36 statements represented a complete overview of innovation readiness factors. No additional innovation factors to those previously identified in the literature emerged from the interviews.

Stakeholders agree that all factors contributing to innovation readiness of long-term care organizations for older adults are accounted for. The variety of perspectives on what is most important shows there is no agreement among stakeholders about a fixed route toward innovation readiness. However, stakeholders suggested a temporal order of the innovation readiness factors, preferably starting with formulating the innovation ambition. This study's results could contribute to developing an assessment tool to deliver a structured approach for managers to assess the innovation readiness of their organization.

The study received ethical approval on April 13, 2022 from the Medical Ethics Board of Zuyderland Medical Center in the Netherlands with the number METCZ20220036.