Virtual Challenge Celebrates Spirit of Innovation

Behavioral health professionals, partners, and community stakeholders from across the state attended LSF Health Systems’ Inaugural Behavioral Innovation Challenge on October 19^th, offering praise for the event and the innovative platform that served as the backdrop for the virtual affair. “When I heard that LSF Health Systems was doing an innovation challenge I was beyond excited,” said Florida Department of Children and Families Secretary Shevaun Harris, who was a special guest speaker at the event. “It shows great leadership in an organization when people are given the time and space to innovate.  Innovation is key to how we build a better delivery model for the services we provide. It’s also how we find new opportunities and how we react to the changing needs of the populations we work with”, Harris told the audience.

In her opening remarks, LSF Health Systems CEO Dr. Christine Cauffield stressed the importance of nurturing the seeds of creativity and creating a culture that promotes innovation to effectively solve the many complex challenges we face in today’s world. Quoting author and research professor Brene Brown, Cauffield added that cultivating vulnerability is key to fostering innovation and creativity, noting that “vulnerability is the courage to show up and be seen, even when the outcome is uncertain.”

Keynote speaker, Nick Kittle, author of Sustainovation, Building Sustainable Innovation, One Wildly Creative Idea at a Time, echoed those remarks, defining innovation as “creativity implemented.”  Kittle stressed the importance of taking action on new ideas even though not all will prove to be as impactful as initially anticipated. “It’s OK for us not to succeed doing what we’re after. The point is that we keep trying because a culture that tries is a culture that innovates.”