Maybe some of you have more money than you have ideas-- that's a difficult state of affairs but it can be solved. Innovation is a process you can learn. We've written some about it already.
I'm guessing most of you-- especially now-- don't have lots of extra money to spend. Do you have more ideas than money? Should you?
I think it would be a bad plan to quit brainstorming and quit planning at this point. Because what if someone does offer you some money? What if some stimulus money appears, and needs to be spent in a hurry? What if you wound up with some extra time on your hands, as funding for certain projects dries up?
The answer is this: you will want to have a little folder of "shovel-ready" plans. This is exactly what the business planning structure is about-- getting from the back of the envelope to a fleshed-out, researched, vetted plan with real need, a real chance, a real budget, real partners. A business plan is shovel-ready: ready to get funded and get going.
Let's talk more about developing "shovel-ready" public health ideas-- are you developing plans now? Why or why not? What would constitute shovel-readiness in your organization? Drop me an email or respond here!
--Steve Orton
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From what I have seen of the shovel-ready projects, many of them are building things - rail travel, bridges, new facilities, etc. There were a few greenway/ sidewalk projects I was excited to see but they're still quite literally shovels in the dirt. In public health, however, a lot of what we do are services. Maybe we need to have badge-ready projects rather than shovel-ready projects. (And I have one if anyone wants to send my organization $90,000 a year for the next 2 years.)
I have been reading The Six Sigma Leader. While I'm only on chapter 2, I have been trying to relate it back to my public health work of changing people's behaviors. If we knew what worked - what got people exercising, eating right, not spreading syphilis etc. - we wouldn't be working on it still. We have some good ideas and there are things that have been shown to work (CDC's Guide to Community Preventive Services) although at the local level those programs may not be feasible. Sometimes we follow these programs that work, which falls under the Six Sigma "good" behaviors. Sometimes we shoot in the dark trying to find solutions, which falls under the "bad" behaviors. (Side note: Perhaps CDC needs to do a review of access to care.) The Community Guide itself is evidence of how often public health engages in projects that may or may not be effective.
So I got to thinking - how do businesses make decisions about new products? That led my brain back to what is the end result we want from our service. Perhaps we need to do less social marketing (telling people what to do to be healthy and why) and more market research (asking people why they aren’t behaving in a healthy manner). Let's ask pregnant women what will have them stop prenatal smoking through 1 year post-partum. If it's not the health of their child, reducing the risk of SIDS, fewer ear infections, etc., maybe it's $750!
Locally we rarely do market research. One survey we do perform is the Community Health Assessment, but only every 4 years. I have recently come to view the community health assessments as looking at what health status people have purchased. Could we instead ask WHY they have made that “purchase”/ lifestyle behavior, or even WHAT would make our public health option “sexier” for them to want to purchase it? For example, instead of asking “have you been diagnosed with diabetes?” could we ask “what stops you from testing your blood sugar every day?”? “How would you like to be physically active?” “What prevents you from doing that?” “What would it take to get you to eat 5 fruits and vegetable servings a day?”
After those questions are tabulated, we (public health) can ask ourselves "How can we make a change for this random representative population we’ve surveyed?". And then back to the original question, what kind of project will meet the challenges/ break the barriers this population has presented to us? THEN we’ll have a badge-ready project, right?
Shirin
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