Learning and Innovation in Health-Care-Based Teams: The Relationships Between Learning, Innovative Behavior at Work, and Implementation of Innovative Practices in Hospitals

Abstract

Non compliance with implementation of innovations is a major problem in health-care-based teams. In the literature, (team-) learning is proposed as a facilitator for the process of implementing innovations. Still, a comprehensive exploration of learning in health-care-based teams and the relation with innovation is scarce. This chapter explores (team-) learning activities in health-care-based teams and the relation between learning processes at individual, team, and organizational levels and implementation of innovations. A review of the literature was conducted. Theoretical aspects of learning on individual, team, and organizational levels are summarized, as well as the concepts of innovative work behavior and implementation of innovations. In addition, we used data and insights from the studies we performed on learning and innovation in health-care-based teams. Insights from separate empirical studies are synthesized to underbuild the relationships between (team) learning, innovative work behavior, and implementation of innovations in health-care-based teams. Learning in health-care-based teams exists on individual, team, and organizational levels. Especially for learning on team level, the relation with innovative behavior at work and implementation of innovations was demonstrated in different studies. Finally, we show how the theories can be used in practice, by showing how we used the theoretical assumptions on learning in building a master’s-level program in nursing science.