Becker's Healthcare is pleased to recognize more than 40 hospitals and health systems with innovation programs.
The hospitals and health systems on this list have committed to staying on the forefront of change in healthcare. The hospitals have dedicated departments, institutes and organizations to promote research, development and innovation. Several of the centers include process redesign, care delivery and coordination improvement initiatives; others incubate new ideas for integrating IT into healthcare delivery.
Note: This list was compiled through editorial research and consideration of nominations. This is not an endorsement of hospitals or affiliated healthcare providers. Organizations cannot pay for inclusion on this list, and hospitals are listed in alphabetical order.
Contact Laura Dyrda at ldyrda@beckershealthcare.com with questions or comments on this list.
Advocate Aurora Health Care: Advocate Cerner Collaborative. In 2012, Milwaukee-based Advocate Aurora Health Care partnered with Cerner to create the Advocate Cerner Collaborative, which uses data and technology to improve outcomes and reduce costs. Click here to read the full profile.
Ascension: Nursing Transformation Unit. Edmundson, Mo.-based Ascension's Nursing Center of Excellence was responsible for the development of the Nursing Transformation Unit at Nashville, Tenn.-based Ascension Saint Thomas West, an innovative program that seeks to tackle the nursing shortage and workplace burnout, and improve care quality. Click here to read the full profile.
Banner Innovation Group. Phoenix-based Banner Health created the Banner Innovation Group to expand and consolidate initiatives from across its system into a central resource with expertise to identify consumer pain points and unmet needs. The innovation team comprises 15 staff members with experience in advertising, retail, social work, startups, technology and other areas. Click here to read the full profile.
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Technology Ventures Office. Boston-baed Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center's Technology Ventures Office collaborates with biomedical companies, venture capitalists and entrepreneurs to commercialize faculty inventions for widespread utilization. In addition to evaluating, patenting, marketing and licensing faculty inventions, the office's business-oriented professionals forge industry alliances through collaboration and licensing agreements. Click here to read the full profile.
Boston Children's Hospital's Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator. Boston Children's Hospital launched the Innovation & Digital Health Accelerator to broaden its digital health offerings and encompass remote care services, clinical decision support tools and interoperable technologies. The accelerator offers consulting, technology evaluation, EMR integration advising, project management, startup strategy and informatics related to population health and social media. Click here to read the full profile.
Brigham and Women's Hospital's Brigham Digital Innovation Hub. Boston-based Brigham and Women's Hospital launched its innovation hub in 2013 to help the hospital's clinicians, scientists and employees advance their ideas for improving care. The Brigham Digital Innovation Hub, also called iHub, has a digital health consulting team of about five employees supporting new ideas and collaborations with organizations such as Microsoft, Redox and Boston-based Harvard Business School. Click here to read the full profile.
Cedars-Sinai Accelerator. The Los Angeles-based Cedars-Sinai Accelerator supports early-stage companies that are developing healthcare solutions. Forty-seven companies from around the world have participated in the three-month program that offers mentorship and the ability to collaborate with clinicians, researchers and other Cedars-Sinai experts. Upon acceptance into the program, companies receive a $100,000 in investment. Click here to read the full article.
CHI Franciscan Innovation. Tacoma, Wash.-based CHI Franciscan has made a dedication to innovation through the launch of its virtual hospital, which has cut wait times and improved outcomes. Within the virtual hospital, the internal medicine program has reduced hospitalists response time for routine patient needs to three minutes for all CHI Franciscan hospital patients. Click here to read the full profile.
Children’s Health Virtual Health and Innovation. Within Dallas-based Children’s Health is the Virtual Health and Innovation program, which includes 30 specialists who are transforming who pediatric patients receive care. Between developing apps to help patients from daily exercise to establishing a leading telehealth program, Children’s Health is a leader in innovation. Click here to read the full profile.
Children's Minnesota: Community Connect. Minneapolis-based Children's Minnesota's innovation program Community Connect aims to address patients' social determinants of health needs. With multiple entry points, patients and families can enroll in the program through proactive screenings during appointments, direct clinician referrals and family self-referrals. Click here to read the full profile.
Cleveland Clinic Innovations. Founded in 2000, Cleveland Clinic Innovations works with its robust provider network to create patient-benefiting medical products and companies. CCI partners with several healthcare institutions through its Healthcare Innovations Alliance and holds an annual Medical Innovation Summit to share its findings with other innovation leaders. Click here to read the full profile.
Dartmouth-Hitchcock Center for Surgical Innovation. A joint venture between Lebanon, N.H.-based Dartmouth-Hitchcock, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth and Thayer School of Engineering at Dartmouth, the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Center for Surgical Innovation specializes in improving the surgical process. Click here to read the full profile.
Geisinger's Steele Institute for Healthcare Innovation. Danville, Pa.-based Geisinger's Steele Institute for Healthcare Innovation program has spurred a variety of projects, including the MyCode Community Health Initiative, Fresh Food Farmacy and Springboard Healthy Scranton. Click here to read the full profile.
Hackensack Meridian Health Center for Discovery and Innovation. To focus on new ideas and creativity in medicine, Edison, N.J.-based Hackensack Meridian Health created its Center for Discovery and Innovation. Currently, the center is focused on regenerative medicine; the science of replacing and healing damaged human cells, tissues and organs; the application of gene engineering and technology; and the use of the body’s own immune system as a way to treat disease and improve outcomes. Click here to read the full profile.
Harris Health System: Center for Innovation. Houston-based Harris Health System's Center for Innovation was established to review, develop and deploy the hundreds of ideas submitted by the system's physicians, nurses and other staff members. Click here to read the full profile.
Hospital for Special Surgery's Global Innovation Institute. Built around the Life Sciences Innovation Center and the Care Delivery Innovation Center, New York City-based Hospital for Special Surgery's Global Innovation Institute is centered on developing and delivering innovative therapies. Click here to read the full profile.
Innovation at Jefferson. Philadelphia-based Jefferson supports several types of innovation, with its commercialization efforts resulting in more than 100 inventions started and 25 new ventures that have raised more than $200 million in investments. The health system also supports 3D printing models for patient care, surgical planning and medical education. Click here to read the full profile.
The Innovation Studio at Children's Hospital Los Angeles. The Innovation Studio at Children's Hospital Los Angeles convenes internal and external communities to design, incubate, accelerate and operationalize new processes and technologies that solve complex problems and transform care delivery models in pediatrics. Click here to read the full profile.
Johns Hopkins Medicine's Sibley Innovation Hub. Washington, D.C.-based Sibley Innovation Hub focuses on digital and non-digital solutions to solve operational challenges for healthcare organizations. The Hub is part of Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, D.C.-based hospital that is a member of Johns Hopkins Medicine. Click here to read the full profile.
Kaiser Permanente Garfield Innovation Center. San Leandro, Calif.-based The Kaiser Permanente Garfield Innovation Center was created in 2005 and is named for Sidney Garfield, MD, the founding physician of Kaiser Permanente. The center continues Dr. Garfield's vision of not only treating the ill, but helping patients maintain a healthy lifestyle. Click here to read the full profile.
LifeBridge Health: Department of Innovation and Research. LifeBridge Health's Department of Innovation and Research applies a community-centric approach to solving organizational challenges. Founded in 2016, the innovation department engages with external partners to expand access to care and improve value-based contracts. Click here to read the full profile.
Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation. Rochester, Minn.-based Mayo's Center for Innovation combines design thinking principles with the scientific method to create patient-centered healthcare delivery solutions. Within the Center for Innovation is the Multidisciplinary Design Clinic, which brings providers and patients together to experiment with new care model prototypes. Click here to read the full profile.
MedStar Institute for Innovation. Washington, D.C.-based MedStar Institute for Innovation was chartered in 2009 and is led by Mark S. Smith, MD. The institute has developed numerous capabilities for MedStar, such as the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare, which optimizes care systems and processes to best complement human behavior. Click here to read the full profile.
Montefiore Health System: Montefiore Einstein Center for Innovation in Simulation. The Montefiore Einstein Center for Innovation in Simulation was established by New York City-based Montefiore and Albert Einstein College of Medicine. The innovation center features simulation technologies equipped for medical education and research, combining nursing schools and physician care to foster an environment that focuses on training procedures for healthcare professionals at all stages of their careers. Click here to read the full profile.
Mount Sinai Health System: Mount Sinai Innovation Partners. Mount Sinai Innovation Partners serves as the commercialization engine for Mount Sinai Health System in New York City. With more than 39 employees in specialties including business development, intellectual property and alliance management, MSIP focuses on translating research and technological discoveries into viable products that help support patient population. Click here to read the full profile.
NewYork-Presbyterian: NewYork-Presbyterian IT-Innovation Center. NewYork-Presbyterian launched the NewYork-Presbyterian IT-Innovation center in 2015 to centralize the health system's telehealth efforts. Click here to read the full profile.
Northwell Health: Health Information Technology and Innovation Center. Northwell Health's Health Information Technology and Innovation Center, in partnership with the New Hyde Park, N.Y.-based system's clinical research facility, is responsible for the creation of several groundbreaking medical technologies. Click here to read the full profile.
Northwestern Medicine's Center for Primary Care Innovation. The Center for Primary Care Innovation at Northwestern Medicine in Evanston, Ill., aims to develop ways to transform traditional primary care delivery. The center gives participants space to test innovative methods of improving care delivery and promoting innovative best practice adoption. Click here to read the full profile.
NYU Langone Health Tech Hub. NYU Langone Health in New York City launched its NYU Langone Health Tech Hub in 2017 as a centralized resource for inventors within and outside the health system to share ideas. The Hub connects innovators with its digital health ecosystem and provides new technologies, data science and user-centered design to help them bring ideas to fruition. Click here to read the full profile.
Orlando Health: Orlando Health Strategic Innovation. Orlando (Fla.) Health's innovation program comprises four project portfolios, each of which has been developed to contribute to the health system's overall strategic goals of improving healthcare delivery and patient outcomes. Click here to read the full profile. Click here to read the full profile.
OSF HealthCare's OSF Innovation. Whether through its co-founded Chicago-based incubator MATTER or partners like provider-led Avia, Peoria, Ill.-based OSF HealthCare's OSF Innovation focuses on incubating and engineering clinical ideas. The innovation program has its own OSF Ventures unit, which invests primarily in companies' Series A and B funding rounds. Click here to read the full profile.
Partners HealthCare Innovation. Boston-based Partners HealthCare Innovation partners with Brigham and Women's Hospital, Massachusetts General Hospital, McLean Hospital and Spaulding Hospital to help researchers commercialize innovations. In February, Partners HealthCare Innovation launched a staff accelerator program that includes mentorship, development opportunities, workshops and other resources for employees. Click here to read the full profile.
Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation. The Penn Medicine Center for Health Care Innovation comprises three distinct entities: the incubator-esque Acceleration Lab, the Nudge Unit for clinical reminders and its Center for Digital Health. Click here to read the full profile.
ProHEALTH Care: Innovation Strategy. ProHEALTH Care, a Lake Success, N.Y.-based provider of primary, urgent and specialty care services with a focus on implementing the latest medical information and technology, has seen several of its departments deploy quality-improving innovations. Click here to read the full profile.
ProMedica Innovations. Toledo, Ohio-based ProMedica Innovations supports more than 56,000 employees to pursue novel ideas. To date, the innovation program has created 70-plus new jobs regionally, attracted $50 million in venture capital, created four companies, provided ongoing resources to more than eight companies, issued seven patents and applied for another 23 patents. Click here to read the full profile.
Providence Digital Innovation Group. Renton, Wash.-based Providence St. Joseph Health developed the Digital Innovation Group to identify issues that could be solved with a digital solution. The group focuses on consumer experience and includes a robust digital strategy, partnerships, digital marketing and new product development. Click here to read the full profile.
SCL Health Innovation Team. In 2015, SCL Health in Broomfield, Colo., established its first system vice president of innovation. A role dedicated to accelerating identifying, initiating and deploying high-volume initiatives that improve access to care. Over the past four years, SCL Health’s innovation team has helped launch more than 15 enterprise initiatives, tested dozens of ventures and touched more than 100,000 patients through these efforts. Click here to read the full profile.
Spectrum Health: Spectrum Health Innovations. Spectrum Health's innovation department not only teams up with university and industry partners, but also taps the Grand Rapids, Mich.-based health system's staff members to identify opportunities for improvement and develop innovative solutions to address them. Click here to read the full profile.
Tampa (Fla.) General Hospital: CareComm Center. The 1,007-bed nonprofit academic center is a leader in innovation with its CareComm Center, which controls day-to-day operations for Tampa General Hospital staff. Through artificial intelligence and predictive analytics, the CareComm Center is designed to improve the experience, operations and outcomes for patients, families and hospital staff. Click here to read the full profile.
UCHealth CARE Innovation Center (Aurora, Colo.). Richard Zane, MD, UCHealth chief innovation officer, and Steven Hess, UCHealth chief information officer and head of the CARE Innovation Center Applied Decision Science Lab, launched the UCHealth CARE Innovation Center in 2016. The center, located on the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, offers a comprehensive suite of resources and services designed to revolutionize health care with leading industry and startup partners. Click here to read the full profile.
UnityPoint Health Innovation Center. West Des Moines, Iowa-based The UnityPoint Health Innovation Center aims to empower and encourage team members to share ideas and propose efficiencies, processes and technologies that support the health system's vision of providing a differentiated and personalized experience to patients. Click here to read the full profile.
University of Missouri Health Care: Tiger Institute for Health Innovation. Columbia-based University of Missouri's Tiger Institute for Health Innovation was formed in 2009 as a public/private partnership between the university and Cerner. Click here to read the full profile.
University Hospitals Ventures. Cleveland-based University Hospitals launched UH Ventures around 18 months ago to help drive innovation within the health system. The investment arm already has several projects underway and a portfolio that includes Conversa, a conversation platform that can provide patients information about chronic diseases, and riskLD, a spinout from University Hospitals developed to automate algorithms in labor and delivery. Click here to read the full profile.
UPMC Enterprises. Pittsburgh-based UPMC Enterprises focuses on two main areas: translational science and digital solutions. The center can work with individuals to bring an idea with a business plan into fruition, as well as with early-stage companies that have an angel round of financing, companies with venture funds seeking additional support and established companies that need growth capital or co-development partnerships. Click here to read the full profile.
Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center's Wake Forest Innovations. Winston-Salem, N.C.-based The Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center is split between two centers: the Center for Innovation and Commercialization helps advance the development and commercialization of inventions, while the Center for Industry Research Collaboration accelerates access to clinical and research capabilities. Click here to read the full profile.