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HHS Startup Day hits the road to court entrepreneurs

HHS kicked off the first of what will be a multi-city tour over a two-year period taking the department’s Startup Day on the road.

By Stephanie Baum on April 05, 2018
Bruce Greenstein, the Department of Health and Human Services CTO, has embraced the work of his predecessors such as Todd Park and Susannah Fox and wants to build on what they established, particularly making the government a welcoming partner for healthcare entrepreneurs.
Last week in Boston, HHS kicked off the first of what will be a multi-city tour over a two-year period taking the department’s Startup Day on the road. It is part of an effort to court healthcare entrepreneurs and make his department more accessible to them. The HHS Idea Lab manages an accelerator called Ignite which is designed to bring an entrepreneurial perspective to the federal government.

“We have to make HHS easier to work with, easier to understand, and more transparent,” said Greenstein. “That’s why we created Startup Day.”

Organized by Pulse at Mass Challenge, the event sought to highlight healthcare priorities for HHS and the alphabet soup of federal healthcare offices from CMS to ONC. The event also highlighted pitches from healthcare startups with feedback from Greenstein and others in a format modeled after the ABC program Shark Tank.  Among the startups that took part in the Boston event were:  Act.MD,  Dynamicare Health, Neuroelectrics, PatientPing, and Pillo Health.

Greenstein noted in the runup to the event that the focus in each city would vary. At the Boston event, for instance, Greenstein said there would be a heavy emphasis on the FDA. In Nashville, for example, there will be an emphasis on CMS.

Kevin McTigue is the program director for the HHS Idea Lab. He noted that entrepreneurs-in-residence in recent years have focused on projects such as improving the mortality data infrastructure as part of the Center for Disease Control’s Surveillance Strategy. Another addressed logistics challenges with the national organ transplant program. 

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The group also hosts code-a-thons towards addressing some of the toughest challenges in healthcare. In December it was the opioid epidemic.

One issue of interest to HHS is kidney disease and what Greenstein regards as a need to update kidney dialysis machines. HHS plans to start a Kidney Disease X Prize later this year, according to MobiHealthNews. It reported that HHS has raised $25 million for the prize so far.

 

Photo: Getty Images