This is a revolutionary concept in Irish Healthcare. The Spark Program is creating a cultural shift by dismantling the traditional hierarchical structure that prevents and blocks innovation at every corner. By empowering those on the front line and the most junior of doctors to have a voice and seek independent funding for improving patient outcomes, we are building capacity for experimentation, openness to risk and a learning mindset to make the organisation more adaptable to change and the innovation process. Through the Spark Program the organisation as a whole starts to view innovation as a positive experience.
The Spark Program is adaptable and modified to quickly and responsively encompass lessons learned. The Program is managed by The National Fellow in Innovation and Change, a junior doctor taking a non-clinical year to manage the program; a clinician leading the initiative removes barriers and fosters better understanding of the difficulties encountered by doctors.

As of October 2018 The Spark Program is in the implementation phase. The Initiatives are developed and are being rolled out. While we are beginning to see the benefits of the Program, we predict that it will take another 2 years for the innovation dividend to be fully realized.
By assessing feedback, and taking action on the lessons learned from our experience thus far, we have been able to adjust the strategy and adapt accordingly, to make provision for the implementation of new initiatives in the near future, such as Spark Disrupts, which will actively seek out transformational change ideas and medical device ideas. We are collaborating with our partners to address any gaps in our skill-set such as patents, commercialisation and up-skilling our team accordingly.
The Spark Seed funding has increased in applications this year by in excess of 300% demonstrating engagement with the scheme and an appetite for change.

The Department of Public Expenditure and Reform (DEPR) partner: "Pop Up" Innovation Hub. We showcased the Spark Innovation Program at their recent Public Service Innovation Conference.
Health Innovation Hub Ireland (HIHI) is an Enterprise Ireland funded body, who has partnered with us on the Spark Ignite initiative.
The National Library Service: together we have appointed a Health Wikipedian-in-residence – this is a global first! We are creating an open access Health library for all citizens.

Staff- increased ownership of the system, better morale, more job satisfaction.
Managers- clear pathways for innovation; innovation stories that illustrate processes, challenges & rewards of innovation.
Patients– improved care and better outcomes.
Med Tech Start Up ecosystem- clinicians can help develop and test new products, improving patient care and outcomes, & bringing better products to market quicker.
Hospitals- attract brightest and best workforce with their culture of innovation.

Spark Summit 2018 daylong event was successfully executed. The feedback was highly positive and the day was attended by 500 medical professionals.

Spark Seed Funding 2017-2018 has created improvements for patients and doctors alike in Irish healthcare with projects such as the Pediatric Medicine Passport and the Online Genetic Counselling Family Tree being shown to improve patient outcomes.

The 2018-2019 Seed Funding Round has received 300% more applications in its first call for submissions than last year. There are projects that we will support that will have significant cost savings to hospitals at a local level and subsequently the health service at a national level. This demonstrates an appetite for the program with junior doctors and is evidence that we are communicating the message to them.

The HSE EXPO will create a morale boost amongst all allied health care staff and aims to showcase in a positive light an industry normally highlighted for negative reasons.

Challenges:
Achieving buy in from senior staff is always a challenge. By creating a pilot and demonstrating positive results it can be possible to overcome this resistance.
Our objective is to use the promotion and support of innovation to lay down new pathways within a healthcare system seriously hampered by legacy bureaucracy and silo mentality. Can we activate a new ecosystem, founded on principles of excellence, improvement, innovation and learning, that might eventually supplant the old system?
Failures:
Some seed funding projects have failed, but they have failed fast and hard minimising the financial and personal loss. We have created a culture where failure is accepted as a part of the learning curve. We can learn just as much from why a project failed as from one that succeeded.

Leadership and Guidance:
The Spark Program created a pathway for innovation to be accepted in healthcare & made it achievable for the most junior of doctors in our health service.
The role of the National Fellow for Innovation in liaising with doctors and hospital management ensures a deeper understanding of the problems and difficulties encountered on the front line.
Creating a safe space where innovation can be explored and developed and promoting a culture that it's ok to fail but fail hard and fast encourages innovation from those who may have been deterred previously.
Collaboration with all stakeholders within the Innovation in Healthcare space develops the innovation culture and promotes it across several disciplines
Financial resources: although we have seed funding available, many of the projects submitted required very little financial assistance, but by having some money available to promote projects we could give them a validation that encouraged their development.

The Spark Innovation Program could be expanded to encompass all of the health sector in terms of other allied health professionals such as Nursing, Physiotherapy and all hospital staff. No member of staff works in isolation in a healthcare environment and any innovation projects that are implemented generally require collaboration between more than one discipline. Expanding the program would create a culture of innovation that truly reaches all areas of the organisation. Encouraging such collaboration between staff would further develop the ideas coming through and enhance overall morale, team work and communication within organisations.
The HSE Expo is the first step in consideration for this expansion. By assessing the appetite from other disciplines we will be in a position to make a business case to expand the program.

Over the past 15 months we have learned from all our initiatives, for example:

The Spark Summit: There has been such a huge interest in the Spark Summit, both from delegates & exhibitors, that we are planning on expanding and commercialising the event next year. We want to develop the Summit into an international Innovation in Healthcare conference which will be hosted over two days and can potentially host 2,000 delegates. This will attract bigger exhibitors and we will have a more diverse offering. Proceeds from this event will be used to fund the program & fund additional resources.

Logo: We received feedback from doctors that our original logo had problems. Some people found it difficult to understand. We listened to them and we have worked on improving this, creating a more logical design flow and changing some of the initiatives. For example, the Spark Connects replaces Spark Debate. The Spark Debate function has been encompassed by the Spark Curiosity function but there was a need for developing connections and enhancing the network to improve our program, hence we developed Spark Connects.

Spark Disruption: We have received a number of projects through the Spark Seed funding initiative that were out of the scope of this project. The project owner either required much larger amounts of funding or skills that we did not possess such as patenting. We are developing the Spark Disruption arm to develop these large scale projects.

Collaboration: By collaborating with other departments such as Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, National Library Service and Health Innovation Hub Ireland we have truly realised an innovation dividend. The collaboration projects enable both parties to develop and grow, we both learn from each other and ultimately the clients of the service will benefit. In cases such as the DEPR/NDTP "Pop up" Innovation Hub, this has benefited both organisations but ultimately will lead to better health outcomes for Ireland.