Health IT, Hospitals, Startups

StartUp Health program expands model in first provider collaboration with Colorado

StartUp Health Colorado includes University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, the five institutions that form UC Health, and Children's Hospital Colorado.

University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

Following the move to bring its health innovation network model to Finland, StartUp Health has marked its first statewide collaboration with providers with the launch of  StartUp Health Colorado, a news release said. The collaboration brings the five-year old group’s concept of putting together a network of healthcare startups and healthcare institutions to University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, the five institutions that form UC Health and Children’s Hospital Colorado.

Unity Stoakes, co-founder of StartUp Health, told MedCity News at Health 2.0 this week it would expand the group’s model to other region’s in the U.S. that have shown they are committed to supporting entrepreneurs. He said pharmaceutical companies would figure into those plans.

“There are more than 15 regions worldwide as of today across the U.S. and the world that are interested in the model of building health innovation hubs to improve the health of their regions,” said  Stoakes. “This marks the first multi-institution collaboration, which is key. Bringing several groups together to partner on building health startups has never been done before.”

If pharmaceutical companies are to change from the way they are currently to becoming more focused on precision medicine, data, value-added services, and relationships with patients there will have to be more collaboration between pharma companies and providers. That could make the kind of collaborations StartUp Health promotes more attractive to help meet those goals.

One objective of StartUp Health Colorado, which is centered in Aurora, Colorado at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, is to invest in 30 startups over a three-year period, Brett Peterson, venture development lead for CU Innovations at University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, said. Among the priorities he identified for health tech innovation were wearables, patient satisfaction, and clinical workflow analytics combining big data and artificial intelligence.

“We want to connect people to the hospital far ahead of hospitalization and to avoid [readmisisons],” Peterson said. “We are working with wearables companies to co-develop and validate form factors for pediatric wearables.”

Still, the types of technology targeted will vary by institution. There will be multiple calls for innovation from the participating institutions, starting next month.

Digital health has become a strategic area of focus in Colorado, Peterson noted. Although the state’s entrepreneur network has revolved around technology, Peterson said there’s been a push to bring the healthcare and technology communities together.

To date, StartUp Health has built a network of 164 health tech companies with nine acquisitions that collectively have raised more than $615 million. The group has for some years advocated for a longer term view of healthcare startups aligned with collaborative institutions beyond the scope of a three month accelerator program. The shift by some of the more established healthcare accelerators from crowdsourcing entrepreneurs to creating more exclusive networks supported by a fund so far seems to be a more sustainable approach.

Photo: University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus

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