We launched the Regional One Health Center for Innovation website earlier this year, but this center has been in development for much longer. Creating the system identity of Regional One Health had been in the works for even longer. It can be hard to describe the amount of brainpower and manpower required to get something of this magnitude off the ground. It can be harder still to describe how inspiring it’s been to witness.
I came on as Executive Director of the Center for Innovation in June of 2015, and I’ve certainly been reflecting on my first year these past months.
Quite frankly, I’m not entirely sure I knew what I was getting myself into when I accepted the position. I knew a few things:
- I had always admired Dr. Coopwood and Susan Cooper for their successes in Nashville.
- Regional One Health was a new name.
- There was a buzz in the air about the outpatient facility at Quince and Kirby.
Winners of Regional One Health’s recent “Shark Tank” employee idea competition.
Even at the beginning, as a sort of outsider looking in, I witnessed innovation each and every day. It’s been a humbling experience to come to understand the number of people, from the executive team to environmental services, who have been so committed to making Regional One Health better. I saw the staff solving big and small problems with innovative solutions via technology, process, or staff realignment.
On our homepage we say, “It’s time for a transformation, to create the innovation we want to see, rather than waiting for it to come to us.” This has been the literal truth for this center from day one, for both Regional One Health and the Center for Innovation.
All of us here at the Regional One Health Center for Innovation are pumped up with the knowledge that Regional One Health is moving quickly in the right direction. I look for the Center to organize the campus and encourage staff to solve some of our bigger challenges and seek solutions from outside entrepreneurs in Memphis and the Mid-South.
This past year has blown me away, and this is only just the beginning.