← Our Work
Open Innovation
Active
Open Innovation Contests
Turning the daily frustrations of MGH's front-line staff into tested solutions, through an open-innovation program run with Harvard Business School.
STATUS
Active
THEME
Open Innovation
HTL ROLE
Program creator and operator
PARTNERS
Harvard Business School (LISH)
THE CHALLENGE
The best ideas often go unheard
The people closest to healthcare's daily pain points — nurses, clinicians, administrative and technical staff — often have the clearest ideas for fixing them, but no structured way to surface those ideas or the resources to act on them. Great solutions stay stuck in the minds of front-line staff.
WHAT HTL DID
A crowd-sourced engine for front-line ideas
HTL created the Ether Dome Challenge, an open-innovation contest run with Harvard Business School (LISH) that systematically surfaces pain points and solutions from across every role group in the hospital. It runs in structured phases — ideation, anonymous crowd voting, application, awards, and implementation — and winning ideas receive funding, project management, and leadership support to bring them to life. Since the first challenge in 2014, EDC has awarded over $150,000 across eight projects.
AREAS OF WORK
Running across the hospital
Primary Care
Run with the Department of Medicine across 16 Primary Care practices, engaging staff in identifying and solving the pain points that matter most to patients and providers.
Nursing & Patient Care Services
Partnering with nurses and patient-care staff — the front line of the patient experience — to surface and implement bedside improvements.
Surgery
Sourcing solutions from surgical teams to streamline workflows and reduce friction in perioperative care.
Cancer Center
Working with oncology staff to address the distinct challenges of complex, longitudinal cancer care.
Heart Center
Engaging cardiovascular teams to improve the delivery of specialized cardiac care.
THE OUTCOME
Ideas turned into implemented change
The Ether Dome Challenge has engaged staff across MGH in identifying and solving the problems they know best, funding a portfolio of implemented projects — from clinical tools to patient-experience improvements — and proving that structured open innovation can turn front-line insight into real change.
Want to run an Ether Dome Challenge in your department?
Get in touch to bring the challenge to your team
HTL
Healthcare Transformation Lab at
Massachusetts General Hospital
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Mass General Brigham