More than two dozen hospitals in Ohio are teaming up to commercialize healthcare technologies.
The Greater Dayton Area Hospital Association, which is made up of 28 facilities, will partner with design firm Kaleidoscope on the initiative, according to an article at the Dayton Business Journal. The new business will be called Ascend and will be located in downtown Dayton. The plan is for the company to visit the hospitals to get ideas, turn those ideas into commercial enterprises and then spin out those companies directly, according to the Business Journal.
"We think the community will be more healthy if there are other industries that join healthcare in the Dayton region with employment and impact," Bryan Bucklew, president and CEO of the hospital association, said.
Ascend won't just focus on local hospitals for the projects; it also will look to the Air Force Research Laboratory and others for ideas. What's more, it intends to tap into local businesses for marketing, engineering and design.
"We are investing and betting on ourselves," Bucklew said. "Our own innovation, technologies and drive. What we're working on here is larger than the individual hospital networks, so the hospitals are working together."
Healthcare innovation and commercialization are growing as new technologies allow companies and health systems to create tools to help consumers lead healthier lives.
For example, Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, along with UPMC, created the Pittsburgh Health Data Alliance, which is committed to creating new data-based innovations. Centers led by Pitt and CMU will carry out the work to create products and services using data that will focus on changing how diseases are prevented and how patients are cared for.
In addition, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced last week that it is opening up its data to innovators to help them create tools for the commercial marketplace.
To learn more:
- read the article