Equipping a third place to assess the real value of digital innovations in patient journeys

Context

Groupe Hospitalier Saint-Joseph set up a health third place with the ambition of fostering innovation that serves patient journeys.

A central question quickly emerged for the third place’s teams:

How can we distinguish the digital innovations that are genuinely useful for patient journeys from those that are more about technological opportunity or window dressing?

The teams were regularly approached by developers of digital solutions, start-ups and internal innovation projects. But they lacked a common, operational and shared framework to:

• assess the relevance of these solutions in real-world journeys
• objectively establish their contribution to value for patients and teams
• make consistent decisions that could be reproduced over time

The challenge

The challenge was not to judge solutions on their technological sophistication, but to answer a more fundamental question:

Does this innovation genuinely improve the patient’s experience, the continuity of the journey and the teams’ ability to do their work well?

And above all: according to which criteria? Criteria clear enough to be used by everyone, regardless of the project?

Our role

We supported the third place’s teams in designing a value-based assessment grid, enabling them to analyse any digital solution in the light of its real impact on patient journeys.

Our role was not to select a solution, but to:

• structure a robust decision-making framework
• make the value criteria explicit
• give the teams an independent capacity to assess and make trade-offs

What we did

1. Building an analysis grid focused on journeys and value

Together with the teams, we co-designed an assessment grid for analysing an innovation according to:

• its contribution to the patient’s experience (understanding, continuity, mental load, autonomy)
• its impact on teams (coordination, clarity of roles, operational fluidity)
• its ability to fit into existing journeys without weakening them
• the nature of the data produced and its real usefulness for management

The grid did not aim to be exhaustive, but to be clear and usable.

2. Using a pilot project as a learning tool

An existing pilot project was used as a concrete case for reflection, not as an end in itself:

• applying the grid to a real situation
• identifying areas of value and blind spots
• collective discussion of the possible trade-offs

The aim was not to “validate” the pilot project, but to build the teams’ capacity for critical analysis.

3. Turning an innovation logic into a decision-making logic

The work shifted the teams’ stance: from a logic of receiving solutions to a logic of structured assessment, based on explicit criteria that can be shared and reproduced.

The grid is designed to be used on other projects, with other partners, and regardless of how mature the solutions are.

What we delivered

• An operational, value-based assessment grid for digital innovations in patient journeys
• A common framework enabling the third place’s teams to compare disparate solutions, make objective decisions and secure their trade-offs with management and partners
• A collective increase in skills in reading innovation projects through the lens of “value”

Impact

• 🔦 Strengthening the third place’s role as a body for discernment, and not only for experimentation
• 🔒 Securing its digital innovation decisions
• 🧩 Aligning innovation, patient journeys and the creation of real value