Sioux Falls, S.D.-based Avera Health is the latest health system to join The Innovation Institute, an independent, for-profit organization based in La Palma, Calif.
Avera Health is the fifth member of The Innovation Institute. The Innovation Institute features a unique business model where hospitals and health systems become investors of the organization. As members/investors, the health systems gain access to The Innovation Institute's internal network of healthcare, technology and innovative expertise to develop ideas and advance innovation.
"We believed that if innovation at Avera was to take off like it should, we needed a drastically different model to facilitate it," said Fred Slunecka, COO of Avera. "So, with The Innovation Institute, we now have an enhanced process to better nurture innovation and provide procedures for vetting, patenting, prototyping and selling innovative medical devices and health care-related discoveries invented by Avera employees and physicians."
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