PRACTICAL
INNOVATIONS

A clinician-led consulting firm and think tank

“Every system is perfectly designed to get the results it gets.”

Paul Batalden

Outcomes aren’t accidents. They’re the results of an intentional or unintentional system design. If you want different results, understand and redesign the system.

We study why care systems produce the results they do, then redesign them with practical tools that hold up in the real world: for the people who give care, the organizations that shape it, the homes where it lands, the technology built to support it, and the children who will one day carry it forward.

Five practices arranged around one mission: the caregiver, the home, the technology, the organization, and the next generation The caregiver Occupational Distress The systemwhere patients live Home Safety Solutions The technology Health-Tech Consulting The organization Compassion Solution The next generation Three Paws Publishing
Five places care happens. One practice for each.

Innovation only matters when it can be practically implemented.

Practical Innovations exists to make sure that healthcare innovation, whether technological, educational, or systemic, improves the lived experience of every person inside care: patients, the people who love them, the clinicians who care for them, and the leaders who make the work possible.

We operate as a small think tank with an applied arm. The research side develops frameworks that explain what is going wrong. The practice side turns those frameworks into workshops, assessments, consulting engagements, and books that people can use this week.

Five practices, one question

What would it take for care to be sustainable for everyone involved? Each practice answers that question in a different place, and each has its own home on the web.

The caregiver

Occupational Distress Consulting

Is the work costing more than it should?

Burnout describes what depletion looks like. The Occupational Distress Syndrome framework explains what is causing it: seven identifiable pathways, from empathic distress and moral injury to effort and reward imbalance, acting on the six dimensions of psychological well-being. Teams leave with shared language, their own pathway profile, and changes that sit inside their control.

ODS is an educational framework that organizes established research. It is not a clinical diagnosis.

  • Team and department workshops, on site or remote
  • Tracks for healthcare and for K-12 and higher education
  • Free self-assessment tools
Visit occupationaldistresssyndrome.com

The organization

Compassion Solution

If compassion were a system output rather than a personality trait, what in your workplace is currently producing it, and what is extinguishing it?

Compassion is a trainable skill, neurologically distinct from empathy, and it becomes culture only when structures support it. Compassion Solution gathers the science and practical pathways for patients, families, clinicians, leaders, health systems, and health professions education, and helps organizations build compassion into leadership, routines, and resources.

  • Culture and implementation consulting for leaders
  • Guides for every stakeholder in care
  • Evidence library and daily practices
Visit compassionsolution.org

The system where patients live

Home Safety Solutions

Is the home ecosystem ready for the person coming home?

Hospitals get people ready to leave. No one is assigned to check whether the house is ready to receive them. A Doctor of Physical Therapy and RESNA Assistive Technology Professional assesses the person, their equipment, and the home together, and delivers a written plan you can act on.

No referral fees or commissions from contractors, suppliers, or device makers.

  • Ready for Discharge assessments
  • Home safety visits and storm readiness
  • Assistive technology guidance
Visit homesafety.solutions

The technology

Health-Tech Consulting

When it comes to tech, three questions matter:

  1. How does this technology impact the human beings it was designed for?
  2. Who is paying?
  3. How much will they pay?

Technology transforms care only when it is designed with clinicians and patients in mind. Health-Tech Consulting pairs a RESNA Assistive Technology Professional with a decade of VA home safety leadership, where Dr. L'HommeDieu brought consumer technology and sensors into veterans' homes and launched research on advanced fall detection. Companies get clinical validation, adoption strategy, and training that frontline staff actually use.

Selected engagements: WellAware Care (AI remote monitoring and predictive analytics), Nuvio Mobility (smart mobility), Cybercare Enterprises (VA business strategy), and Cornell Tech Product Studio (clinical advisor on an AI documentation tool).

  • Clinical validation and product development for fall prevention, remote monitoring, smart mobility, and aging in place
  • VA and federal market strategy
  • Clinical education and micro-learning for product launches
  • Prototyping support, from concept to working device
Discuss your product

The next generation

Three Paws Publishing

How do children learn that different is not less?

Compassion starts long before anyone enters a profession. The Adventures of Daisy follows a real three-legged therapy dog through stories about self-acceptance, big feelings, courage, and perseverance. Written by Karen L'HommeDieu, LMSW, and Dr. Russ L'HommeDieu, each book comes with free teacher's guides and activity books that support social-emotional learning and STEM.

  • Daisy's Different, Daisy Dives In, and Daisy Can't Help It. 
  • Free classroom guides and activity books
  • School and event visits with Daisy
Visit threepawspublishing.com

How we work: the idea, the mechanism, the proof

Our mark is a light bulb holding a gear holding a check mark. It is also our method. Every practice moves through the same three steps before it reaches the people it is meant for.

  1. 1

    The idea

    Start from a problem seen at the bedside, in the classroom, or in the living room, and name it precisely. Precise names make problems solvable.

  2. 2

    The mechanism

    Build something repeatable: a framework, a workshop, an assessment protocol, a book with a teacher's guide. If it only works when we are in the room, it is not finished.

  3. 3

    The proof

    Check it against peer-reviewed evidence and against the lived experience of the people it serves. We cite our sources and say plainly what is established and what is not.

Where should you start?

Most clients need more than one practice. Tell us where you are and we will show you how the pieces fit.

Plan an engagement
Dr. Russ L'HommeDieu, founder of Practical Innovations, in a navy suit outside a modern medical building

Innovation without application is just an interesting idea. Practical innovation changes lives.

Dr. Russ L'HommeDieu, founder

Russ L'HommeDieu, DPT, ATP, EdD candidate

Every practice here traces back to one clinician's career. Dr. L'HommeDieu has practiced physical therapy for more than 35 years, including long service as a VA Home Safety Coordinator on a home-based primary care team. He holds the RESNA Assistive Technology Professional credential and a Harvard Bok Higher Education Teaching Certificate, and is completing an EdD in Health Education and Leadership at Nebraska Methodist College.

He teaches in the Doctor of Physical Therapy program at Bowling Green State University, previously taught at Nova Southeastern University, has spoken at Harvard Medical School and Baylor University, and developed the Occupational Distress Syndrome framework. With his wife, Karen L'HommeDieu, LMSW, he co-founded Three Paws Publishing, and together they raise Daisy, the certified therapy dog at the heart of the books.

Start a conversation

Tell us what you are working on. Every inquiry is read by Dr. L'HommeDieu, and scope is set directly with him.

Russ@practicalinnovations.org (813) 867-3372 Apollo Beach, Florida. Working in person across Tampa Bay and remotely everywhere.

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