Hospitals

CONVERGE: Pediatrics needs telemedicine, CHOP innovation chief says

Perhaps like children themselves, pediatrics often is misunderstood by others in the healthcare industry. "People think the pediatric market is small," Patrick K. FitzGerald, the first-ever vice president for entrepreneurship and innovation at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said Tuesday at MedCity CONVERGE in Philadelphia.

Perhaps like children themselves, pediatrics often is misunderstood by others in the healthcare industry. “People think the pediatric market is small,” Patrick K. FitzGerald, the first-ever vice president for entrepreneurship and innovation at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said Tuesday at MedCity CONVERGE in Philadelphia.

For example, while telemedicine seems to be taking off in adult medicine, that may not be the case in context of children and adolescents — an opportunity for entrepreneurs. “The greatest unmet need in pediatrics is telemedicine,” FitzGerald said. Wait times tend to be long in pediatrics, particularly for highly specialized care, he noted, so any innovation that improves access and makes physicians more efficient is welcome at CHOP.

Plus, telemedicine is more proven than the countless IT and digital healthcare startups vying for the attention of the typical hospital. FitzGerald wants proven technology. He reported only seeing “little blips” in use of wearables at CHOP, even though there is so much buzz around such technologies elsewhere.

“If you have a great idea, we are your worst customer,” FitzGerald quipped. He explained that innovations coming out of CHOP need to be tested externally before management will green-light something across the whole enterprise. Try and validate at other hospitals first, FitzGerald advised the many entrepreneurs in attendance.

He is less focused on how to streamline processes at CHOP than on pushing ideas out to the rest of the world. Indeed, FitzGerald told MedCity News in June that he expected CHOP will have 1-2 “transformative” projects a year worthy of commercialization. Tuesday, he highlighted a few successes, including Spark Therapeutics, a publicly traded gene therapy company that CHOP spun out 2013.

“That said, my ears are open to see what we could bring in,” the self-described “serial entrepreneur” added.

FitzGerald said that healthcare entrepreneurs could learn plenty from other industries. He showed this slide illustrating companies that excite him. More than half are outside healthcare.

 

 

 

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