L’ innovation en santé est-elle perçue comme étant technologique ou sociale? Une réflexion conceptuelle dans le domaine de la santé publique

Abstract

Health innovations occur in different services, organizations and communities. Also, they are confronted with multiple institutional logics, which are often contradictory. The market logic focused primarily on profit and the creation of economic value through innovations holds the monopoly in current innovation systems. This orientation is based on a techno-economic vision of innovation in which technologies are considered as an end in themselves. Consequently, the economic value of innovation is privileged over the social one. This dominant perspective involves various challenges and issues in the field of public and community health, where many actors compete and have divergent interests. This article takes a close look at the notion of innovation in order to clarify its meaning, and to rethink its different paradigmatic orientations, notably techno-economic and social. The discussion will study the interest of social innovation as a paradigm to promote in the field of public health.