Becker's Hospital Review

71 INNOVATION OSF HealthCare executive sees C-suite, innovation team relationship as integral to growth By Georgina Gonzalez D espite being a midsize health system, OSF HealthCare pumps a lot of time, effort and investment into innova- tion and technology. Its chief medical offi- cer for innovation and digital health, John Vozenilek, MD, discussed with Becker's how the system approaches innovation. Dr. Vozenilek joined the call from Miami, far flung from Peoria, Ill., where OSF HealthCare is based. e emergency medicine physician by training told Becker's that he was in Miami researching the potential for blockchain to be used in healthcare, especially regarding pa- tient data privacy and security. "It would not seem that a Catholic healthcare system in the middle of central Illinois would actually have a play in this idea of blockchain," he said. "But we have a very significant interest in data privacy, data security and agency in data." Dr. Vozenilek said there's potential for block- chain to help patients reclaim ownership of their data and, perhaps, be rewarded for its use. "Now I don't mean that patients are going to receive cryptocurrency," he said. "But I do think that patients will benefit by our sharing, and I do think there are imaginative ways that patients can receive rewards for the sharing of personal health data." For a midsize health system employing 2,400 providers, OSF HealthCare has a large in- novation arm. It has established a "hospi- tal-at-home" program, invested in health tech researchers and created a best-practices app for nurses. Partnerships have been instru- mental in its successes, Dr. Vozenilek said. "We identified a number of external partners and we learned and grew, starting primarily with some external partners and through ex- ternal innovation," he said. "But at the same time, we began to build our internal innova- tion platform. We did this by partnering with academic institutions and with other business partners to develop new ideas, ones that we could achieve through internal investment." Among these internal investments are their discovery labs. "Our discovery labs are focus areas for creat- ing new business intelligence and creating new businesses through internal innovation," he said. "So we partner with academics and others, and we show them our needs and healthcare ar- eas and those particular focuses, and we invite them into these laboratories to co-create." OSF HealthCare currently has seven discov- ery labs, each focusing on a different chal- lenge; a blockchain lab will bring the total labs to eight. While the labs are in-house in- vestments, they can be funded through seed grants from their Jump Applied Research for Community Health through Engineering and Simulation endowment, or ARCHES, which has already funded $4 million worth of seed projects, or through OSF HealthCare com- munity health advocacy programs. ey have also previously received funding from exter- nal agencies, such as HHS. "So in the traditional model, innovation comes out of the operating unit as a cost ... you have to invest in research and development," Dr. Vozenilek said. "We've had tremendous philanthropic support for innovation in this Catholic healthcare organization, and it's re- ally allowed us the flexibility to take risks that we would not have otherwise taken." To Dr. Vozenilek, part of the reason for the success of the system's innovation is due to the close relationship between the innovation team and the C-suite. "e key leadership of our organization ... give us the initiative and the room to grow the innovation program," he said. "I think without that direct connection at the C-Suite, innovation would be much slower, and we'd really be working within the con- straints of operating units." n DocGo unveils 1st all-electric, zero-emissions ambulance in the nation By Georgina Gonzalez M obile healthcare company DocGo launched a fleet of all electric, zero emissions ambulances, the first regis- tered in the nation. The fleet adds to the existing hybrid vehicles DocGo has and pushes the company toward its goal of having an all-electric fleet by 2032, according to a March 3 news release. The new ambulances' pollution levels are one-tenth that of a standard gasoline vehicle and also require lower fuel and maintenance costs, potentially reducing the cost of patient care. To celebrate the first patient transported in an electric ambu- lance, DocGo will host a ceremony in New York City with a part- ner hospital to be decided. n Providence executive leaves for Amazon By Katie Adams A aron Martin, former chief digital officer at Renton, Wash.-based Providence, left the health system March 25 to join Amazon as a vice president of health, Bloomberg reported. At Providence, Mr. Martin led the health system's digital innovation strategy and venture capital arm. At Amazon, he will help the company strengthen its partnerships with healthcare providers, an Amazon spokesperson told Bloomberg. Mr. Martin worked at Amazon from 2005-13, leading the company's self-publishing and media manufac- turing on-demand businesses as well as working on the Kindle e-reader, according to his LinkedIn page. n

• Cover