BCRISP: Brigham’s Cutting-Edge Approach to Innovation

Jessica Dudley
An article in the Harvard Business Review reveals how BWH promotes innovation through BCRISP.
How does a leading academic medical center go about revamping its approach to innovation, with a focus on improving quality and controlling costs?
A recent article in the Harvard Business Review reveals how BWH promotes innovation by tapping into the energy and expertise of frontline staff through the Brigham Care Redesign Incubator and Startup Program (BCRISP). The successful initiative—launched in 2013 by Karl Laskowski, MD, MBA, assistant medical director of the Brigham and Women’s Physicians Organization (BWPO), and Jessica Dudley, MD, chief medical officer of the BWPO—is structured like an incubator or early venture capital fund and supports clinicians in developing their game-changing ideas to redesign care.
Since its inception, BCRISP has received more than 100 submitted applications from teams of clinicians in every clinical department. Some of these applications have been selected to receive seed funding and compete in Shark Tank-style public events. The most successful projects have received up to $50,000 in funding and continued coaching, and have created a positive impact on overall cost and quality control.
“Overall, BCRISP has been a transformative program for our physicians and institution — catalyzing understanding and engagement around improving value for our patients,” write Laskowski and Dudley in Harvard Business Review.
Visit Harvard Business Review’s website to read the full story.