With an unprecedented amount of attention and dollars spent on healthcare-related research at academic medical centers, institutions are often blazing their own trails with regard to innovation and commercialization. In an attempt to consolidate a diverse array of approaches, Cleveland Clinic Innovations and the Council for American Medical Innovation have joined forces to release the first-ever comprehensive study of technological innovation and commercialization at the nation’s top healthcare institutions.
The Medical Innovation Playbook will offer an in-depth characterization of how each of the top medical centers has organized to stimulate innovation and its commercial application. The Playbook will include profiles of at least 75 academic institutions and medical centers that, when combined, will result in an easy-to-understand guide that will be a resource for practitioners, academic executives, trustees, policy makers, companies, entrepreneurs and investors.
Our goal is to give readers an inside look at the major American institutions that are playing a primary role in addressing some of the world’s major medical issues. These hubs of creativity are attacking the biggest health issues, with their doctors and scientists turning their breakthrough research into inventions and eventually, commercial products that can benefit patients.
The Playbook has been prepared over the past year through the active participation of academic medical centers and the support of a steering committee comprised of nationally prominent representatives from medical technology corporations, investment firms, and leading academic medical centers. The 75 institutions profiled in the Playbook were selected for inclusion based on two criteria: (1) cumulative healthcare research budget, and (2) current measurable outcomes associated with technology commercialization program activities.
While institutions may be largely similar in their shared commitment to discovery, research and innovation, the Playbook provides insight to the different approaches used across the nation.
The Playbook abstract, released in November 2012, includes eight profiles, and can be found on the Medical Innovation Playbook website. The full Playbook is scheduled to be released this summer. The profiles will be a snapshot of the missions and operations of the programs as of the release. Because programs and priorities continually evolve, the Playbook and the profiles will be regularly updated on a dedicated website developed for this purpose.
Chris Coburn has been the Executive Director of Cleveland Clinic Innovations, Cleveland Clinic’s corporate venturing arm, since it was established in 2000. Cleveland Clinic Innovations is ranked by Global Corporate Venturing as one of the world’s Top 4 health corporate venturing organizations.
Categories: The Business of Health Care
One of the issues that medical innovation drives in the US health care system is higher costs. Unlike other industries, it is unusual in our health care system to see innovations which maintain or improve outcomes without substantially higher costs associated with them. I hope that at least some portion of this playbook will speak to how disruptive the development of lower cost treatment options can be in expanding the market, including guides to identifying candidates for such innovation.