Houston-based Memorial Hermann is teaming up with the Texas Medical Center’s Center for Device Innovation to nurture employee-driven innovation and help staff bring new ideas to life, the health system’s vice president of information technology and innovation told Becker’s.
“From a Memorial Hermann perspective, innovation is one of the key tenets of our organizational DNA. We officially launched our innovation hub in 2022, and a major focus from the start has been identifying ways to support employees who have novel ideas — and helping them understand what it takes to move from ideation to commercialization,” Ini Ekiko Thomas, vice president of information technology and innovation for Memorial Hermann, said. “Over the years, we’ve seen growing interest from employees who want to know how the organization can support them in this work. To build the right infrastructure, we decided to partner with industry experts who can help strengthen our employees’ skills.”
Memorial Hermann announced its partnership with the Texas Medical Center’s Center for Device Innovation on Nov. 17. Through the collaboration, employees — including clinicians, frontline staff, clinical staff, non-clinical employees and physicians — can work directly with CDI experts to refine their ideas and develop early-stage prototypes.
Two cohorts are already participating in the program. The inaugural class includes 15 employees — four of whom, according to Ms. Thomas, had already been developing inventions on their own time. They are now receiving support to sharpen those concepts and explore their potential impact on healthcare and on Memorial Hermann.
“By the end of this first year, we expect them to be able to articulate everything they’ve learned: the reimbursement landscape, how to build a lightweight prototype, what the pathway to commercialization looks like, and how to deliver a 30-second, two-minute and five-minute pitch,” she said.
In spring 2026, Memorial Hermann is planning a “Shark Tank”-style event in which participating employees will present their pitches to organizational leaders.
“Based on those presentations, we’re hopeful we’ll identify one or more ideas that Memorial Hermann can support — funding them, helping them advance to the next steps, and potentially moving toward IP and, eventually, a commercialized product,” Ms. Thomas said.
The goal of the initiative is to give employees a pathway to understand what it looks like to move from being an employee to potentially becoming an entrepreneur.
“This isn’t just about sending employees through a program — it’s about hardwiring a new discipline into our organization,” she said. “We want to cultivate a community of inventors whose ideas become part of the organization’s DNA.”
Another aim of the program is to help build internal capabilities.
“This partnership accelerates our ability to build those capabilities and the infrastructure to support more employees, faster,” Ms. Thomas said. “Ultimately, the hope is that this leads to more IP, potential spin-off companies, and commercialized products. And all of this ties back to Memorial Hermann’s vision: creating healthier communities now and for generations to come. It’s about advancing our mission and thinking differently about how we care for our patients and our community.”
