Why Healthcare Desperately Needs Clinically Led Innovation
Image created by Rudy Chidiac. © Open Medical 2025. All Rights Reserved
There are too many stories of top-down innovation procurements that, once they trickle down to the frontline, lead to more problems, more burden, and more frustration.
We’ve seen this in the NHS before, with projects often dubbed “white elephants” because of their astronomical costs and minimal value.
These white elephant innovations—particularly in digital health—tend to fall short because they weren’t built with the clinicians on the ground in mind. The tech is clunky. It doesn't help day-to-day tasks. In many cases, it actually adds more work.
The cost of excluding clinicians
Within the NHS, the pressure to reduce waiting lists, improve performance, and unlock capacity is relentless.
But how are clinicians expected to provide modern care in 2025 using systems designed two decades ago? When the technology they have adds friction instead of removing it? When workflows aren’t designed for the complexity of today’s healthcare?
Real improvement—across all NHS priorities—comes down to the delivery of care on the ground. That means improving the processes, workflows, and experiences of clinicians and the flow of patients through their care pathways.
When digital innovations are implemented without clinical input, the result is often the exact opposite of progress: more time wasted, more frustration, and more risk.
Technology should never add a burden. It should reduce it.
What happens when clinicians lead
When innovations are clinically led—whether built by clinicians or meaningfully shaped by them—they’re different. They’re valuable. And the reason is simple: they’re solutions.
A solution built by someone who’s lived the problem will solve the right problem. They’ll know where the process breaks down. They’ll know the unwritten workarounds that keep things moving. They’ll see the gap between what the system expects and what patients actually need because they’ve had to navigate it themselves.
Clinically led innovation is grounded in the real, operational, emotional day-to-day experience of care. It reflects the actual load clinical teams carry and tries to ease it. It adapts to how they work, not the other way around.
And when clinicians back a solution—when they support its use or advocate for its adoption—it’s a powerful signal. Clinicians don’t do that for fun. They do it because the tool works. Because it makes their job easier. Because they need it.
That’s the power of clinically led innovation, whether created by a clinician or back by clinicians. It brings three key strengths that are too often missing from top-down approaches.
The three biggest strengths of clinically led innovation
Real-world relevance: These solutions solve actual problems. Either a clinician was frustrated enough to create it themselves, or clinicians on the ground saw the difference it could make. NHS England found that when frontline staff are involved in design, success rates climb because the result reflects reality, not fantasy.
Greater adoption and engagement: If clinicians create a digital solution, it will be intuitive within a clinical context so usability is baked in—less friction, more flow. It also means adoption will be smoother. And if clinicians back a digital tool, then engagement is already there. There’s nothing more powerful than clinicians championing the use of technology themselves.
Sustainable impact and continuous improvement: Clinically led solutions land better and last longer. When clinicians are involved, feedback loops are faster, and improvements are grounded in real-world change. That makes these tools more adaptable, more resilient, and far more sustainable.
If it’s not clinically led or backed, it’s not clinically relevant
Healthcare innovation doesn’t succeed when it’s built for the system. It succeeds when it’s built for the people inside it. For the teams delivering care every day under impossible pressures.
If an innovation is created by clinicians and backed by those on the ground, then it’s not just valuable. It’s necessary. Maybe even desperately.
When clinicians are empowered, patients benefit. And that should always be the point.
