Message from the President
Thank you for stopping by our site! We hope you will be inspired to follow our exciting new venture in healthcare, focused on innovation and growth. Having personally worked in healthcare for over three decades, I have held a growing passion to drive innovation for years. This passion for innovation drove me and my team to form the Innovation Institute, launching operations in January 2013.
At a time when positive change in healthcare is critically needed, ours is a collaborative focused on advancing innovation and sustaining growth in our healthcare partners and the communities they serve. Our efforts will be balanced: we will advance the latest concepts in healthcare, driving a return for investors while maintaining a strong emphasis on innovations that bring real community benefit. Our Mission is to advance innovation in collaboration with others – doing more, with less, for more people.
The Need
When we talk about innovation, we often imagine new ideas, concepts, products, and breakthroughs that have the potential to transform an organization or an industry. Most often, innovation occurs when there is a burning platform- a need for change driven by some outside source or pressure. Competition can be the driver, or the environment, an economic event, or even regulatory change. In healthcare, most leaders agree that the system is broken and there is tremendous need for innovative solutions to the complex problems facing the industry. Incremental change will not get us there.
Every system across the nation and around the world is focused on cutting costs, reducing errors, and standardization…all of which are admirable goals. However, to solve the problems facing the U.S. Healthcare System, we need new, break-through innovative solutions. Embracing risk and accepting and learning from failure are not common practices in healthcare today where the focus is on providing high quality care. We need a vehicle or model that will facilitate innovative thinking and transformation as opposed to incremental change.
Recent best-practice models have instead recognized that for innovation to succeed it must be unencumbered from day-to-day operations of large health systems, operate independently, and be set up with a culture that allows for taking risk- and failing- in order to succeed in the long run, a practice called “failing forward”.
A recent study of the 50 most successful companies in the world found that the common denominator of these companies was a focus on innovation, and the ability to reinvent themselves or adapt to the changing environment, markets, customer demands, and competition over time.
Our Solution
Considering these realities, the Innovation Institute has been set up as a standalone company, operating as a for-profit LLC, owned by, non-profit health systems. Today the Institute has six health systems that have invested as “Member Owners”. The Institute is profitable and self-sustaining, unlike traditional R & D divisions that are operated as a department or cost center.
In 2013, when we launched the Innovation Institute we had five employees. Today we own several portfolio companies, have annual revenues in excess of $300 million, have over 700 employees, and operate in over 20 States. We have a Lab in La Palma, California and offices in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Sioux Falls, South Dakota, Fresno and Cincinnati, Ohio.
As I look to the future, I am excited about the potential for the Innovation Institute and what we will do in collaboration with others of like mind. I hope you will join us in our efforts and check back on our progress. If you do have any questions, suggestions, or are interested in investing, partnering or bringing forth ideas, please do not hesitate to contact us. Thank you in advance for your consideration, and God bless!
