Ventures Are a Growing Trend in Health System Innovation

Giving Compass’ Take:

• HealthLeaders reports on the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator program, which is giving seed money to promising entrepreneurs trying to address health system gaps and help patients.

• How promising is the venture model for healthcare disruption and what can the nonprofit world do to support it? It’s a challenging field, but with plenty of opportunities for scaling bold new ideas.

• Here’s how collaborative healthcare investments are becoming part of this new model.

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Eight healthcare technology startups just received a significant boost toward long-term success as the Cedars-Sinai Accelerator in Los Angeles launched its fourth class of graduates onto the market. Participants completed an intensive three-month program involving mentorships with Cedars-Sinai physicians and executives, and exposure to a global entrepreneurial network through Techstars, an organization that works with entrepreneurs to cultivate their ideas. Each company received an initial investment of $120,000.

The Accelerator is indicative a growing trend at hospitals and health systems to cultivate and invest in entrepreneurial ventures designed to change the healthcare system. These ventures often provide direct benefits to the systems involved in the investment and can sometimes result in profitable returns. In turn, the entrepreneurs receive access to experts who help refine their ideas and strategies, as well as obtain access to the health system itself, which serves as a living lab to test their products and services.

Cedars-Sinai’s first cohort was launched in 2015. Startups in the three previous classes have raised nearly $100 million in investment funds and have collectively hired about 200 people following program completion.

Participants in this most recent class, selected from a global search involving 400 applicants, are developing technologies to enhance health system efficiency and patient care through artificial intelligence applications, hardware innovation, and other digital platforms. Several have already secured commercial contracts with health systems and companies

Read the full article about ventures as a trend in health systems by Mandy Roth at HealthLeaders Media.