Cedars-Sinai said it can move faster in developing innovations that work in real-world, clinical environments and improve healthcare delivery by collaborating to build and nurture an entrepreneurial program that taps the health system's data and clinical resources.
WHY IT MATTERS
Redesign Health, which says it has launched more than 60 healthcare companies, will work with Cedars-Sinai to develop the innovation center, according to the health system's announcement Wednesday.
Cedars-Sinai's doctors, researchers and staff members will have opportunities to participate by identifying and solving challenges in their everyday work. The academic healthcare system said it intends to foster a culture of entrepreneurship to guide and mentor digital innovation that improves patient care and operations and increases coordination among patients, providers and payers.
The Digital Innovation Platform will source experienced founders to lead the new companies. They will gain access to an integrated data platform Cedars-Sinai is developing, which uses deidentified, secure and synthetic data – a source of artificial data that mimics real-world patterns.
The incubating companies will use the data source to train AI and with other emerging technologies, and Cedars-Sinai will be the first to validate precision medicine and other patient care tools they develop.
Dr. Peter Slavin, Cedars-Sinai's president and CEO and the David and Meredith Kaplan Presidential Chair, called the partnership a bold approach to addressing the Los Angeles-based healthcare system's critical needs.
"Cedars-Sinai is uniquely positioned to develop new and innovative ways to fix some of the most pressing problems in healthcare today, thanks to our focus on translational medicine and our ability to bring together leading-edge clinical care, research, AI and strategic industry relationships to benefit our patients," he said in a statement.
THE LARGER TREND
Hospitals and health systems have been nurturing accelerator programs for several years to develop and grow technologies that support delivery operations and patient services.
Five years ago, Tampa General Hospital launched a fund, innovation lab and accelerator program now called TGH Ventures that created a portfolio of healthcare companies that include logistics platform Dexcare, food-as-nutrition delivery service Modifyhealth and others.
In the last couple of years, more health systems have been leveraging their vast troves of data to develop and further AI and other emerging healthcare technologies.
GE HealthCare Technologies and the University of California San Francisco formed a partnership to collaborate on advanced imaging and precision oncology. Through a Care Innovation Hub, the partners said in January that they aim to improve hospital operations and increase access to care by developing, testing and evaluating novel technologies for diagnosing and treating disease in clinical settings.
Mount Sinai Health announced its center for AI and human health to foster collaboration in November. The Hamilton and Amabel James Center for Artificial Intelligence and Human Health at its Icahn School of Medicine in New York City launched with a plan to house 40 principal investigators and 250 graduate students, postdoctoral fellows, computer scientists and support staff, including the Windreich Department of AI and Human Health.
ON THE RECORD
"By harnessing Cedars-Sinai’s groundbreaking medical research, expansive provider network and clinical insights, we’re uniquely positioned to develop transformative businesses that not only address unmet needs but also shape the future of healthcare on a global scale," Brett Shaheen, Redesign Health founder and CEO, said in a statement.
Andrea Fox is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Email: afox@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.
