Calculated INSIGHT: A New Way to Evaluate Health Care Technology Innovation

As health care innovation accelerates, evaluating the full potential and impact of emerging technologies is challenging. Understanding the justification of selected automations often brings up questions. Upfront costs, legacy systems, limited resources, and misaligned priorities also complicate technology selection and adoption. Nurses hold critical understanding of clinical workflows, patient impact, and operational transformation. Recognizing this central role, the HIMSS Nursing Innovation Advisory Workgroup used essential nursing practices of clinical assessment and evidence-based design to address this problem. This team developed INSIGHT, the Innovation Scoring and Impact Guide for Healthcare Technologies, a dynamic, evidence-informed evaluation tool. INSIGHT applies weighted scoring to industry-validated criteria, generating both numeric and narrative impressions across 3 themes: value and culture, risks and rewards, and complexity. It supports clinicians, operational and technical leaders, executives, and academia in comparing solutions, building business cases, informing investments, and general understanding of key factors influencing successful technology adoption. By translating nursing clinical judgment and strategic evaluation into a structured framework, INSIGHT equips any stakeholder to substantiate technology solutions with data, elevating their perspectives with evidence and confidence. INSIGHT promotes alignment with organizational capacity and priorities, introduces transparency, consistency, and objectivity, advancing more inclusive, informed, and effective technology solutions in health care.