Innovation

Many hospital and health system leaders shared insights into the role of innovation in healthcare with Becker's Hospital Review in October.

The Morningside Foundation invested $10 million into Atlanta-based Emory University to promote research into groundbreaking, cost-effective treatments for cancer and other diseases.

The University of South Florida's USF Health Morsani College of Medicine in Tampa announced on Oct. 30 the creation of the first Medical School of Innovation, in partnership with Microsoft.

Shriners Hospitals for Children is partnering with genomics telehealth technology company Genome Medical to advance precision medicine and genetic services offered at the Tampa, Fla.-based health system's new genomics institute.  

Leaders in state and city government, philanthropic organizations, urban development and the University of Michigan announced plans this week for a 14-acre Detroit Center for Innovation, located in the heart of the city's downtown.

As part of Microsoft's Project Hanover, biomedical researchers from the Jackson Laboratory are refining an artificial intelligence tool that "reads" medical documents to inform the development of precision cancer treatments, per an Oct. 27 Microsoft blog post.

University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Cardinal Health and Amazon Web Services are partnering with Virtusa, an IT and digital health solutions provider, to use artificial intelligence techniques in medical research.

East Lansing-based Michigan State University received a $19.5 million gift from Doug Meijer and the Meijer Foundation to build a facility that will support biomedical research to develop new healthcare solutions.

To keep goals and expectations in check for UCHealth's innovation team, Richard Zane, MD, reminds them of Amara's law: "People will overestimate the importance of technology in the short term and underestimate it in the long term."

The healthcare delivery model seems to be lagging far behind other areas of medicine in terms of much-needed transformation; indeed, healthcare leaders would greatly benefit from following the scientific model of innovation.