Becker's Hospital Review

47 INNOVATION Texas Children's is building a 'startup culture' with innovation, tech at the forefront By Laura Dyrda M yra Davis became the CIO and chief innovation officer at Houston-based Texas Children's Hospital in 2019, overseeing a culture change to promote new ideas within the largest pediatric center in the nation. In a Forbes article, Ms. Davis outlined how she has been able to promote "outside-the-box" thinking since her tenure began more than a year ago and how the hospital was able to overcome challenges during the pandemic. Ms. Davis was co-leader of the hospital's telehealth efforts and leveraged technology to "reinvent" patient interactions. A few key initiatives include: 1. Transitioning the process for insurance in- formation gathering from in-person before the visit to online through the digital portal pa- tients can use to register for appointments. 2. Implementing technology to take tempera- tures upon entering the facilities. 3. Placing QR codes on mobile devices for dig- ital patient transfer. Prior to the pandemic, Ms. Davis had begun changing the culture by launching an innova- tion hub for employees to share ideas about how to improve healthcare delivery and held "idea rallies" to solicit suggestions. She also developed an innovation advisory group that included physicians, the chief nursing officer and general counsel to review promising ideas, including one to automate low-value adminis- trative processes. e project so far with the best potential is an investment Texas Children's made in Configo Health, which aims to develop a pediatric pa- tient data repository. Ms. Davis also wants to see small ideas succeed going forward. "We're building a startup culture internally and that's going to take time," she said. n Mount Sinai, NYU Langone use taxi app to transport health workers, patients By Jackie Drees N ew York City-based health systems Mount Sinai and NYU Langone Health have partnered with Curb, a mobile platform for taxi and for-hire rides, to transport healthcare workers and patients during the pandemic. NYC Health + Hospitals and the American Cancer Society also teamed up with Curb, which connects about two-thirds of the city's taxis to its mobile platform. The company is also working with New York City's emergency management department to help residents travel to city programs. "Our residents are working around the clock to help patients, so they often have limited transportation options that enable them to practice social dis- tancing and follow other safety guidelines as they commute," Rishi Parikh, vice chair of administration at Mount Sinai's urology department said in a June 17 news release. "Curb has enabled taxis to help fill that gap by giv- ing us the ability to e-hail rides on demand or in advance for our residents when they need them." Curb allows its users to electronically hail a taxi from the mobile app. To encourage social distancing, the service lets users pay through the app. Curb's mobility platform is connected to more than 100,000 taxis and for- hire vehicles across the U.S. and U.K. n Cleveland's University Hospitals, NASA partner on tech to clean PPE By Laura Dyrda C leveland-based University Hospitals partnered with NASA to create tech- nologies and methods to decontaminate personal protective equip- ment for aerospace applications and COVID-19 front-line workers. University Hospitals' venture capital arm, UH Ventures, facilitated the part- nership, which will develop two unique approaches for sanitizing masks on-site and reusing them. The methods tested include using atomic ox- ygen and peracetic acid to sterilize masks. The methods are promising and early results have been favorable for atomic oxygen decontamination, University Hospitals said. The peracetic acid method is under FDA review for emergency use authorization, it said. The technology may have aerospace applications as well, when traditional sterilization isn't available. "NASA strives to ensure the technology we develop for space exploration and aeronautics is broadly available to benefit the public and the nation," said NASA's Glenn Research Center Director Marla Perez-Davis, PhD. University Hospitals Chief Clinical and Scientific Officer Daniel Simon, MD, said the health system has sufficient PPE but aims to be proactive about the future need and potential shortage due to COVID-19 surges across the U.S. "The opportunity to pool resources and quickly bring about PPE sterilization solutions for the benefit of our caregivers is truly remarkable," he said. n

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