Abstract
Clinicians play a critical role in recognizing, initiating, and adopting innovative solutions to clinical problems. Increasing clinician involvement in problem-based innovation will help identify and solve unmet medical needs. The overall objective of our program was to increase clinician involvement in problem-based innovation. We pioneered and piloted the “Magic Wand” Initiative (MWI) at Massachusetts General Hospital Department of Dermatology, by inviting clinical faculty to voluntarily participate in problem-driven innovation. The primary outcome was the number of unmet clinical needs identified and pursued by clinicians, who were ‘activated’ to initiate problem-based innovation. Other objectives were to enhance clinician-to-clinician dialogue and to develop specific strategic framework for clinician-led, problem-driven research. This pilot MWI was started in 2013 with an announcement at dermatology faculty meeting inviting all clinical faculty to participate on volunteer basis. Academic dermatologists were the main participants in this program. They also contacted, collaborated and worked with research faculty, industry experts and lawyers. Out of 30 unmet needs identified by clinicians participating in MWI, eight are actively being pursued by clinicians. Three of those cases presented here have achieved publications, grant funding, prototype devices and product for patient use. In conclusion, MWI is an innovative approach that educates and equips clinician to identify and solve problems and engages them as leaders in their healthcare ecosystem. MWI has achieved concrete measurable success, affirming that if clinicians are empowered and supported to identify and solve existing unmet medical problems, new and innovative solutions can be invented to improve patient care.
Data availability
The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article.
Abbreviations
- MWI:
-
Magic Wand Initiative
- AID:
-
Advancing Innovation in Dermatology
- IP:
-
Intellectual Property
- KS:
-
Kaposi’s Sarcoma
- NIH:
-
National Institutes of Health
References
Zuckerman B, Margolis PA, Mate KS (2013) Health services innovation: the time is now. JAMA 309(11):1113–1114
NIH Physician-scientist Workforce (PSW) Working Group Report. [June 1, 2014]; NIH Web site. https://acd.od.nih.gov/documents/reports/PSW_Report_ACD_06042014.pdf
Garibyan L, Anderson RR (2017) Increasing clinical faculty engagement in problem-driven research: the "magic wand" initiative at massachusetts general hospital. JAMA Dermatol 153(5):375–376
Raff AB, Kroshinsky D (2016) Cellulitis: a review. JAMA 316(3):325–337
Strazzula L et al (2015) Inpatient dermatology consultation aids diagnosis of cellulitis among hospitalized patients: a multi-institutional analysis. J Am Acad Dermatol 73(1):70–75
St John J et al (2018) Estimating the health care costs associated with recurrent cellulitis managed in the outpatient setting. J Am Acad Dermatol 78(4):749–753
Ko LN et al (2018) Effect of dermatology consultation on outcomes for patients with presumed cellulitis: a randomized clinical trial. JAMA Dermatol 154(5):529–536
Ko LN et al (2018) Skin surface temperatures measured by thermal imaging aid in the diagnosis of cellulitis. J Invest Dermatol 138(3):520–526
Ko LN et al (2018) Clinical usefulness of imaging and blood cultures in cellulitis evaluation. JAMA Intern Med 178(7):994–996
Brown DN, Langan SM, Freeman EE (2017) Task shifting in dermatology: a call to action. JAMA Dermatol 153(11):1179–1180
Gbabe OF et al (2014) Treatment of severe or progressive Kaposi's sarcoma in HIV-infected adults. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD003256.pub2
Freeman EE et al (2018) Smartphone confocal microscopy for imaging cellular structures in human skin in vivo. Biomed Opt Express 9(4):1906–1915
Lyons JJ, Milner JD, Stone KD (2015) Atopic dermatitis in children: clinical features, pathophysiology, and treatment. Immunol Allergy Clin North Am 35(1):161–183
Kraft MT, Prince BT (2019) Atopic dermatitis is a barrier issue, not an allergy issue. Immunol Allergy Clin North Am 39(4):507–519
Elias PM (2008) Skin barrier function. Curr Allergy Asthma Rep 8(4):299–305
Yu B et al (2016) An elastic second skin. Nat Mater 15(8):911–918
Bouthillette M et al (2019) A crosslinked polymer skin barrier film for moderate to severe atopic dermatitis: a pilot study in adults. J Am Acad Dermatol 71:116–132
Funding
Dr. Freeman’s time on the preparation and review of the manuscript was supported by NIH R21-TW010221 grant. Some initial funding for this program was provided by Advancing Innovation in Dermatology (AID) which is nonprofit organization.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Conflict of interest
The trademark for Magic Wand is owned by the Massachusetts General Hospital. The authors declare no other competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher's Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Garibyan, L., Kroshinsky, D., Freeman, E. et al. A strategy for empowering clinicians and increasing innovation: the Magic Wand Initiative. Arch Dermatol Res 313, 599–602 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-020-02111-z
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00403-020-02111-z