Welcome Letter from Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Dear Changemakers Community,

Welcome to “Disruptive Innovations in Health and Health Care: Solutions People Want.” This is the second in a series of Changemakers’s collaborative competitions sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) through its Pioneer Portfolio.

RWJF’s mission is to improve the health and health care of all Americans. Our grant making covers a range of pressing issues including: reversing the rise in childhood obesity rates; improving the quality of care; raising the visibility, effectiveness and readiness of the public health system; and ensuring affordable health care coverage for all Americans. RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio is a distinct pool of funding to support novel, high-return ideas that may have far-reaching impact on people’s health, the quality of care they receive and the systems through which that care is provided. You can learn more about our work at rwjf.org/pioneer.

We are pleased to be able to partner with Changemakers on this competition on disruptive innovation because it gets at the heart of what drives Pioneer– finding innovations that can transform health and health care. Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen coined the term “disruptive innovation” to describe a technology, process, or business model that brings to market a product or service that is much more affordable and much simpler to use than what is currently available. In so doing, more consumers in the market can afford and/or have the ability to use the product or service. The change caused by such an innovation is so big that it eventually replaces, or disrupts, the established approach to providing that product or service.

In some instances, the effects of such innovations are big and bold enough to transform business, markets, populations…even entire societies. It is our hope that the projects entered in the Disruptive Innovations competition can trigger similarly positive and profound change in health and health care in the United States. We look forward to seeing your innovative solutions for how we can improve access to care, lower costs, promote greater efficiency, and deliver higher-quality services in ways that empower consumers.

Following the Changemakers competition, selected entries will be invited to submit proposals to RWJF’s Pioneer Portfolio for future funding consideration. A total of up to $5 million in grants is available to support promising disruptive innovations in health and health care. The Foundation will be looking particularly for innovations that show potential to produce significant improvement in health and health care in the U.S. Organizations must operate in the U.S. or its territories in order to be eligible for RWJF funding.

We invite you to participate by entering your disruptive innovation on the Changemakers Mosaic of Solutions, which serves as the framework for identifying the principles for and barriers to enabling disruptive innovation. The competition is intended to offer you the opportunity to showcase your ideas and your work, and it provides RWJF a uniquely valuable and rich opportunity to learn about what solutions hold promise.

As a part of the Changemakers global community, we want you to help test and refine the ideas surfacing through this competition – we call your attention to the online review option that accompanies each entry, and invite you to share your thoughts and reactions throughout the stages of the competition. This level of collaboration is what will help to surface new innovations and connect participants to new ideas, partners, and resources. We also invite you to join the on-line discussion about what constitutes disruptive innovation and at what stage in the idea process it can be identified and nurtured. We look forward to participating with you in an active, dynamic exchange of ideas.

Nancy Barrand
Senior Program Officer
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

P.S. Click here for more on disruptive innovation