Validity and Reliability of the New Innovation Culture Scale© for Use in Healthcare Settings

To assess the psychometric properties of the new 10-item Innovation Culture Scale©.

American healthcare is expensive with poor health outcomes as the norm. Nurses can disrupt this paradigm through innovation; however, innovation cannot flourish without a supportive organizational culture. There is a lack of scales to measure innovation culture within healthcare settings, thus supporting improvements in quality of care.

A Northeastern health system provided a convenience sample of 5658 nurses, physicians, and allied health professionals. Scale responses were obtained digitally. Item correlations, scree plot, and confirmatory factory analysis examined the scale's internal structure and assessed model fit.

Two hundred sixteen participants completed the scale. Item correlations were positive and significant (P < 0.001). Scree plot confirmed a single factor structure. Several indices supported an acceptable model fit (comparative fit index = 0.935, Tucker-Lewis index = 0.916, standardized root mean square residual = 0.05), although root mean square error of approximation (0.119) was poor. Cronbach's α was 0.94.

The Innovation Culture Scale is a valid and reliable measure to assess innovation culture in healthcare settings.