The following excerpts are taken from the descriptions, missions and value statements of some of the many associations championing health innovation:
… catalyst focused on enabling innovations that provide solutions to the most pressing issues facing our health care system…
… broad membership … to advance innovations that improve health, enhance the quality of health care, and achieve greater value for the money spent…
… bipartisan organization … bringing together a peer group … from all parts of the health care industry…
… network of executives who lead … mission is to advance … healthcare…
… advocacy-based organization … from diverse sectors of the health care industry come together … collective impact to advance … addressing complex problems in health…
… association … innovators, scientists, patients, providers and payers, promotes the understanding and adoption … to benefit patients and the health system…
If we remove the words like “nonpartisan”, “nonprofit”, “society”, “membership”, etc. from the “About Us” sections of leading health-focused association websites, it’s easy to see that their focus is much the same as the most disruptive, innovative and ambitious companies who are transforming the health industry. Health associations are advocating for causes, closing gaps, creating efficiencies, influencing policies, educating and certifying constituents, addressing disparities, and even investing in health innovation.
Collectively, health associations are made up of and represent, nearly every health business, executive and professional, dedicated to improving the health of U.S. citizens and the U.S. health system. With so much passion and so much possible, why do we still have so far to go to improve health, lower health costs, and provide satisfying health experiences? One word: “silos”.
The biggest barrier to transforming health is not our technology, nor our passion, purpose, or possible – it is our failure to collaborate across agendas, stakeholders, and causes. Yes, even the greatest aggregators of health potential – health associations – are (naturally) isolated to specifically focus and attend to their core purpose for being. Associations are at the very heart of innovations occurring across the health ecosystem, yet they are often invisible to the business of health; including the business of health investors and health startups, where much of the industry’s innovation is occurring.
There’s an opportunity to recognize and leverage the incredible work that health-focused associations are doing to reimagine and reshape the industry. Following are a few examples of associations who are focused on health innovations:
- American Heart Association, together with Philips and UPMC, recently launched Cardeation Capital, a $30 million collaborative venture capital fund designed to spur healthcare innovation in heart disease and stroke care.
- The Society of Physician Entrepreneurs (SoPE) and The Innovation Institute (TII) partnership gives SoPE the opportunity to work with TII’s team of Ph.D.’s, M.D.’s, and tech transfer staff to commercialize and take their ideas to market.
- The American Hospital Association Center for Health Innovation serves as an important knowledge and relationship hub, connecting health care organizations with innovators and resources representing a wide range of sectors from technology to design to engineering.
- The Network for Excellence in Health Innovation’s (NEHI) research is aimed at identifying promising but underused technologies, assessing their impact on improving care and highlighting barriers to their adoption. NEHI’s research has focused on remote patient monitoring devices, mobile devices, tele-health, tele-ICUs, social media platforms and technologies for managing patients with chronic disease.
HLTH brings together all stakeholders from across the health ecosystem – including health-focused associations – to learn from and collaborate with one another and to activate the “potential” and realize the “possible” from innovations that will positively improve health.
HLTH: The Future of Healthcare. Won’t you join us in reimaging and reinventing health – for all?
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