Healthcare Innovation Initiatives Accelerating

The unveiling of two innovation facilities last week signals the willingness of payers to help find "actionable, outcomes-driven" healthcare solutions.

With the coming of spring, innovation is in the healthcare industry air.

In separate announcements last week, two initiatives were launched in Seattle and Chicago.

In Seattle, Cambia Health Solutions held a grand opening for Cambia Grove, a 9,000-square-foot innovation facility designed to provide "a collaborative environment for innovators, entrepreneurs, employers, the public sector, and community stakeholders," according to a company statement.

Nicole Bell, executive director of Cambia Grove, says her facility has grand innovation objectives.

"We are not an innovation center, accelerator, incubator, or co-working space," Bell said last week. "Our mission is to raise up the healthcare sector here and become a powerhouse cluster, more like Boston or Nashville for the healthcare industry. We encourage the regional health plans, providers, and large employers to figure out together what types of common unmet needs in healthcare we have, and commission some of the 'solutioning' work to entrepreneurs… We believe that matchmaking will encourage more novel approaches, as well as encourage young businesses to take root here."

And in Chicago last week, America's Health Insurance Plans unveiled the AHIP Innovation Lab. The Washington, DC-based trade industry association aims for this facility to help health plans use "peer groups of healthcare professionals, thought leaders, and subject matter experts to turn ideas into actionable, outcomes-driven solutions to a particular challenge," it said in a statement.

AHIP's 26,000-square-foot innovation facility is designed to help health plans and other healthcare organizations navigate the changes sweeping across the industry, VP of Communications Ben Jenkins said last week.

"Technology is driving stakeholders to improve through innovation. In this new consumer-driven marketplace, stakeholders from all sectors understand that it's essential to work together to find solutions to complex challenges facing patients and the healthcare industry as a whole—and many companies are stepping up," he said.

Jenkins says the AHIP Innovation Lab's corporate partners, including Accenture, Amgen, and GE Healthcare, "will contribute guidance and thought leadership centered on this shared goal of solving complex healthcare challenges."

'The Return Will be on the Economic Impact'
Bell says Cambia Grove is an embodiment of Cambia Health Solutions' commitment to play a transformative role in the healthcare industry. Cambia Health Solutions is the corporate parent of more than 20 companies, including the Regence brand of BlueCross BlueShield affiliates that operates in Idaho, Oregon, Utah and Washington State.

Cambia Health Solutions is a not-for-profit, tax-paying holding company founded with an idealistic view of return on investment, Bell says. "As such, we can think about our mission a bit differently. The return will be on the economic impact on this region, which we call home."

Cambia Health Solutions is bearing the full cost for the innovation initiative, Bell says. "Cambia Health Solutions is funding the facility, the staff, supporting programs and events as a way to build community and to establish the Pacific Northwest as an innovation hub for the industry," she said, adding none of Cambia Grove's "anchor partners" are providing funding for the initiative.

Entrepreneurs who take advantage of Cambia Grove's resources will not be required to pay fees or other compensation.

"We are providing the space at no cost to the entrepreneurs and anchor partners. All [intellectual property] resulting from collaboration or partnerships remain with the entrepreneurs," she said. "The Cambia Grove was created for the betterment of the health industry as a whole and to build a community that doesn't currently exist in the region. Our goal is to connect innovators and entrepreneurs with those they might not otherwise have access to. We feel that a rising tide lifts all ships and that this approach will not only benefit Cambia, but the industry as whole by making Seattle a national center that drives the new health economy."

Bell says Cambia Grove and other innovation initiatives across the country reflect a pressing need among healthcare organizations to adapt to a rapidly changing business environment.

"It seems like we have reached an inflection point, where the industry will not tolerate the waste and perverse economic incentives that were the norm for so long. The way we see it, the Pacific Northwest is very well-suited to be the first place in the country to achieve the triple aim in healthcare: better health, better care and lower costs. We have natural advantages that, if harnessed, will allow us to transform this industry as we have for the online retail, tech, aerospace and coffee industries."

So far, it has four anchor partners: EvergreenHealth, Regence, UW Medicine and Qliance.

"We hope that the work we do provides a good example, so that others in the community will take the step to begin 'sitting around the table' with young companies more often. Cambia Grove isn't about 'flying cars,' it's about coming together and solving some of the toughest issues—palliative care, connecting caregivers with just-in-time data on patients, combatting depression, reaching people in more rural settings," she says.

'Community of Innovation to Improve Healthcare'
A pair of academics says Cambia Grove deserves an "A" for effort.

Susan Penner, RN, DPH, an adjunct faculty member at the University of San Francisco School of Nursing and Health Professions, says Cambia Grove is taking an unprecedented approach to healthcare innovation.

She sees it as "a unique innovation initiative because it brings start-ups, university research programs and health insurance plans together to foster a community of innovation to improve healthcare." And, she says, says Cambia Grove should be able to bear down on some of healthcare's most vexing problems.

"One example of the potential of Cambia Grove is finding creative ways to reduce preventable hospital readmissions. A possible approach would be to combine resources, technology, and medical expertise to fund mobile van units to provide easily accessible care and support for selected health concerns. Patients with disorders such as high-risk pregnancies, congestive heart failure, or asthma could receive care at their home, workplace or school with improved health outcomes. A health plan investing in similar ventures would demonstrate long-term savings," she said.

Spyros Kitsiou, PhD, an assistant professor at the Department of Biomedical and Health Information Sciences at the University of Illinois at Chicago, says there is an existential need in the healthcare industry for innovation initiatives such as Cambia Grove.

"Healthcare is changing like never before. Sweeping healthcare reforms and market forces have transformed the way healthcare is delivered. The rapid growth of health information technologies and e-health innovations are creating significant opportunities for healthcare professionals, practitioners, researchers, and organizations for improving processes and practices. Continuous advances in mobile technologies are changing the ways that medical research is conducted and provide us with new ways for discovering patterns that we have never seen before, and addressing persistent problems such as patient empowerment and engagement in the process of care. Many healthcare industry organizations must adapt to these changing inputs to maintain an equilibrium."