Newport Beach, California-based Innovation Lab, the incubator collaboratively owned by six nonprofit health systems, has partnered with health technology company Olive to co-develop automation solutions for providers.
Part of the Innovation Institute, the lab works with its health system owners to identify unmet needs, create medical products around those and bring them to market, said Ryan Kelly, Innovation Lab’s general manager, in a phone interview. The institute is a for-profit entity owned by:
- Bon Secours Mercy Health in Cincinnati
- Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System in Baton Rouge, Louisiana
- Avera Health in Sioux Falls, South Dakota
- CHOC Children’s in Orange, California
- Valley Children’s Healthcare in Madera, California
- MultiCare Health System in Tacoma, Washington
Announced Tuesday, the partnership between Innovation Lab and Columbus, Ohio-based Olive will focus on artificial intelligence-driven tools that automate and drive efficiencies in operational and clinical workflows, Kelly said. To create these tools, the companies will leverage Olive’s AI platform and technical expertise, as well as Innovation Lab’s frontline access to the above health systems’ executives and innovators.
“[We will] identify places where we can bring Olive’s technology to the table and co-develop a new solution on top of their platform, ultimately with the view to solve [a] problem at the health system, and [also] to take that product and commercialize it broadly, leveraging Olive’s distribution capability,” Kelly said.
Initially, the companies will focus on integrating an Innovation Lab product that connects patients and case managers into Olive’s platform. The product aims to help patients navigate the journey from acute care to a post-acute care settings.
A Deep-dive Into Specialty Pharma
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
“That’s kind of the low-hanging fruit opportunity that we’re looking at, but we’ve also got some other really exciting, more transformative opportunities that we are evaluating,” Kelly said.
The new solutions that are co-developed will also be part of the Olive Helps Loop Library, which is similar to Apple’s App Store but for hospital and health system customers.
“This alliance will create a massive opportunity for healthcare leaders, developers and investors across multiple providers and companies to listen, build, learn and release innovation on the Olive platform that improves the human experience for workers and patients alike,” said Patrick Jones, executive vice president of Olive, in an email.
The Innovation Institute and lab were established in 2013. The lab acts as the exclusive commercialization partner of the six health system owners, and since its inception, it has successfully commercialized 20 products, ranging from digital solutions to research tools. Revenues from the sale of the products are shared with the owners, which are also often sites for pilots or validation studies.
But now, the Innovation Lab is launching a subscription, or fee-for-service, version of its innovation services for providers outside of the six owners.
This move will help expand the partnership with Olive, Innovation Lab’s Kelly said.
“As we grow in scale through our subscription offering and bring more hospitals and health systems into our ecosystem, it only widens the net for how and where we can source opportunity [for the products we will co-develop],” he said.
Correction: A previous version of this article mistakenly stated that Olive was based in Cleveland.
Photo: Gerasimov174, Getty Images
