Becker's Hospital Review is pleased to recognize the following 50 hospitals and health systems with innovation programs.
The hospitals and health systems on this list are among those that have committed to keeping up with — or getting ahead of — the pace of change in healthcare by forming dedicated centers and institutes for innovation.
Research and development coming from these innovation programs range from the technological, including medical devices, diagnostics and mobile health platforms, to clinical workflows and process improvements.
While some of these hospitals have a specific center dedicated to innovation and others have established commercialization arms and technology transfer offices, they all are addressing some of the biggest challenges facing patient care and care delivery.
Note: This list was compiled through editorial research and consideration of nominations. This list is not an endorsement of included hospitals or affiliated healthcare providers. Organizations cannot pay for inclusion on this list. Hospitals are presented in alphabetical order.
Akron (Ohio) Children's Hospital's Center for Patient Experience Innovation. The Center for Patient Experience Innovation at Akron Children's Hospital focuses on how positive healthcare experiences can transform clinical outcomes. [READ MORE]
Baylor Scott & White Health's Research Ventures (Dallas). Research Ventures, the commercialization unit of Baylor Scott & White Health, supports health system staff with inventions and discoveries. [READ MORE]
Baystate Health's TechSpring (Springfield, Mass.). TechSpring is an innovation center affiliated with Springfield, Mass.-based Baystate Health. [READ MORE]
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Technology Ventures Office (Boston). The Technology Ventures Office at BIDMC seeks to translate research and innovation from the health system into products to benefit society. [READ MORE]
Boston Children's Hospital's Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator. This internal accelerator supports both innovations coming from members of the Boston Children's community as well as external startups and enterprises. [READ MORE]
Brigham and Women's Brigham Innovation Hub (Boston). The Brigham Innovation Hub, called the iHub, launched in September 2013 as a resource center for internal and external innovators. [READ MORE]
Children's Health Virtual Health and Innovation. Children's Health Virtual Health and Innovation is a new operating unit formed in 2015 at Children's Health that aims to invest and partner with companies, technologies and organizations on care delivery. [READ MORE]
Children's Hospital Colorado's Center for Innovation (Aurora). The Center for Innovation at Children's Hospital Colorado supports innovators and entrepreneurs from ideation and concept vetting to incubation and product and service launches. [READ MORE]
Children's Hospital Los Angeles' Center for Innovation. Medical technology companies, pharmaceutical companies, venture capitalists, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and social impact investors join forces at CHLA's Center for Innovation to develop, test and commercialize new products and services. [READ MORE]
Children's National Health System's Bear Institute (Washington, D.C.). Formed in 2013, The Bear Institute for Health Innovation is a collaboration between Children's National Health System and Kansas City, Mo.-based Cerner. [READ MORE]
Cleveland Clinic Innovations. In the 16 years since its founding, Cleveland Clinic's commercialization arm has supported more than 3,400 inventions; issued more than 800 patents and 450 licenses; and produced more than 40 active spin-off companies. [READ MORE]
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Center for Surgical Innovation (Lebanon, N.H.). Surgeons at Dartmouth-Hitchcock can take advantage of the hospital's Center for Surgical Innovation, which provides them with resources for translational research and support to develop "bench-to-bedside" investigations to improve the safety and efficacy of surgery across all specialties. [READ MORE]
El Camino Hospital's Fogarty Institute of Innovation (Mountain View, Calif.). Thomas Fogarty, MD, is widely known for inventing the embolectomy catheter, or balloon catheter, which was patented in 1969, but he also carried that same spirit of innovation to El Camino Hospital when he created the Fogarty Institute of Innovation in 2007. [READ MORE]
Florida Hospital Innovation Lab (Orlando). The Innovation Lab is located within Florida Hospital Orlando and serves as a space for innovators to collaborate. [READ MORE]
Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin's Inception Health (Milwaukee). Inception Health LLC is the hub of Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin's health networks' digital health services. [READ MORE]
Hartford (Conn.) Hospital's Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation. What started as a medical simulation center in 1999 has transformed into the Center for Education, Simulation and Innovation. [READ MORE]
Henry Ford Health System's Innovation Institute (Detroit). Since 2012, the Henry Ford Innovation Institute has supported the Henry Ford community's innovators by offering invention vetting, subject matter experts to assess market potential, prototype partners and facilities, and more. [READ MORE]
Hospital for Special Surgery's HSS Innovation Center (New York City). The HSS Innovation Center is comprised of a technology development office that has been around since 1979 to commercialize viable technologies and an accelerator to develop and pilot ideas. [READ MORE]
Intermountain Healthcare's Healthcare Transformation Lab (Murray, Utah). The Healthcare Transformation Lab opened 10 miles south of Salt Lake City in August 2013 with the goal of researching, developing and measuring ideas to optimize patient care. [READ MORE]
Johns Hopkins Medicine's Sibley Innovation Hub (Washington, D.C.). The Innovation Hub at Sibley Memorial Hospital, part of Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Medicine, seeks to envision what healthcare will look like in five years, and then make that a reality today. [READ MORE]
Kaiser Permanente's Sidney R. Garfield Health Care Innovation Center (San Leandro, Calif.). Named after Kaiser Permanente's founding physician, the Garfield Center opened in June 2006 and has served as grounds for developing ideas and testing innovations. [READ MORE]
Massachusetts General Hospital's Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation (Boston). The John D. Stoeckle Center for Primary Care Innovation was established in 2001 and named for Dr. Stoeckle, who spent 50 years as a primary care physician at Mass General. [READ MORE]
Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation (Rochester, Minn.). Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation offers capabilities and services for designing research, seeking to transform healthcare delivery with a patient-centered focus. [READ MORE]
MD Anderson Cancer Center's Strategic Industry Ventures (Houston). Through collaborations with faculty and working with the health system's Office of Technology Commercialization, MD Anderson's Strategic Industry Ventures seeks to bring new drugs, diagnostics, devices and information solutions to market to benefit cancer patients. [READ MORE]
Mercy Medical Center's Mercy Innovation Center (Des Moines, Iowa). Established in 2014, Mercy Innovation Center offers those in the Mercy system resources and expertise to redesign care delivery. [READ MORE]
Metro Health Innovation Center (Wyoming, Mich.). Metro Health employees can make use of the Innovation Center to meet and work on projects for the health system. [READ MORE]
Mills-Peninsula Health Services Center for Innovation & Research (Burlingame, Calif.). Part of Sacramento, Calif.-based Sutter Health, the Mills-Peninsula Center for Innovation and Research seeks to be a "living laboratory" for new care models, technologies, therapeutic products, services and treatments. [READ MORE]
Mission Health System's Mission Center for Innovation (Asheville, N.C.). The Mission Center for Innovation offers innovators business planning and feasibility analyses, opportunities to connect with appropriate partners and, in some cases, funding. [READ MORE]
Mount Sinai Innovation Partners (New York City). Mount Sinai Innovation Partners is the technology transfer office for the Icahn School of Medicine and Mount Sinai Health System. [READ MORE]
Nationwide Children's Hospital's Center for Innovation in Pediatric Practice (Columbus, Ohio). Researchers in the Center for Innovation in Pediatric Practice seek to develop methods to better deliver health services to children and their families. [READ MORE]
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospitals' NYP Innovation Center. Since launching in 2014, NewYork-Presbyterian's Innovation Center has hosted a number of events, hackathons and challenges to harness its community's innovative and entrepreneurial spirit. [READ MORE]
NorthShore University HealthSystem's Grainger Center for Simulation and Innovation (Evanston, Ill.). The Grainger Center for Simulation and Innovation is housed in a 13,000-square-foot facility at NorthShore Evanston Hospital. [READ MORE]
Ochsner Health System's innovationOchsner (New Orleans). Although innovationOchsner, Ochsner Health System's innovative "think tank," launched in March 2015, the health system opened its first O Bar in July 2014. [READ MORE]
Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center's IDEA Studio for Healthcare and Design (Columbus). The IDEA Studio for Healthcare and Design's mission is to redefine the healthcare user experience through innovation, design thinking and application of integrated solutions. [READ MORE]
OSF HealthCare's OSF Innovation (Peoria, Ill.). A new program, OSF Innovation at OSF HealthCare launched in June. [READ MORE]
Parkview Health's Mirro Center for Research and Innovation (Fort Wayne, Ind.). The Mirro Center for Research and Innovation is comprised of a research center that hosts studies, a dedicated innovation space for scientists, entrepreneurs and organizations that want to transform healthcare delivery, and advanced simulation labs and classrooms for education and training. [READ MORE]
Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation (Philadelphia). Unique to this innovation center is its Penn Social Media and Health Innovation lab that conducts research focused on the intersection of social media, mobile technology and health. [READ MORE]
Penn State Children's Hospital's Pediatric Innovation Program (Hershey, Pa.). A collaboration between Penn State Children's Hospital, University Park, Pa.-based Penn State University and several industrial partners, the Pediatric Innovation Program is a forum for clinicians, engineers and industry partners to share ideas and develop medical technology for infants and children. [READ MORE]
ProMedica Innovations (Toledo, Ohio). Founded in 2012 by ProMedica health system, ProMedica Innovations strives to assist investors, employees and community members with the development and commercialization of technologies that improve patient care. [READ MORE]
The Innovation Institute (La Palma, Calif.). The Innovation Institute was launched in 2013 by Irvine, Calif.-based St. Joseph Health (which merged with Renton, Wash.-based Providence Health & Services in July) as a for-profit, independent collaborative of five health systems. [READ MORE]
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital's Jefferson Accelerator Zone (Philadelphia). The Jefferson Accelerator Zone, or JAZ, opened in January 2015 as "command central" for innovation-related activities. [READ MORE]
University of Colorado Hospital's Center for Surgical Innovation (Denver). CSI, a multidisciplinary surgical training center dedicated to developing techniques and technologies, is affiliated with the CU School of Medicine's Department of Surgery. [READ MORE]
University of California San Francisco's Center for Digital Health Innovation. CHDI pairs UCSF innovators and with outside healthcare and technology leaders to work toward its goal of improving health worldwide. [READ MORE]
University of California's Center for Health Quality and Innovation (Oakland). The University of California launched its Center for Health Quality and Innovation in October 2010 with the goal of supporting innovations at UC Health campuses. [READ MORE]
University Hospitals' Harrington Discovery Institute (Cleveland). As the nonprofit arm of The Harrington Project for Discovery & Development, the Harrington Discovery Institute is dedicated to supporting physician-scientists who want to improve the medications available to patients. [READ MORE]
UNC Health Care's Innovate Health Care @ Carolina (Chapel Hill). Innovate Health Care @ Carolina is a project between UNC Health Care and the UNC School of Medicine. [READ MORE]
UPMC Enterprises (Pittsburgh). UPMC Enterprises, building on two decades of commercialization efforts at UPMC, believes integrating technology with the healthcare industry is the ideal way to lower costs and boost quality. [READ MORE]
University of Utah Spark Innovation Lab (Salt Lake City). When the University of Utah Patient Experience Think Tank challenged undergraduates to find ways of bettering patient experiences in 2011, one pre-med/business student suggested what is now the Spark Health Innovation Lab. [READ MORE]
University of Missouri's Tiger Institute for Health Innovation (Columbia). In 2009, former University of Missouri President Gary Forsee and Cerner CEO Neal Patterson joined forces to create the Tiger Institute for Health Innovation. [READ MORE]
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Wake Forest Innovations (Winston-Salem, N.C.). Wake Forest Innovations has three centers: the Center for Technology Innovation & Commercialization accelerates the development of inventions; the Center for Industry Research Collaboration speeds up access to specialized clinical and research capabilities; and the Center for Applied Learning promotes best clinical practices through experiential training. [READ MORE]