An app to help improve the surgical safety of patients with medical implants. A novel resting hand splint for infants. And a new type of heart stent. These are just a few of the ideas our Mission Partners have developed in hopes of improving or transforming health care. The Office of Innovation Management (OIM) was launched to help Mission Partners bring these types of health care solutions to life and eventually to market.
Since its inception in 2019, the OIM has received more than 125 concepts with some moving on to full invention disclosure or the commercialization process. Nearly twenty are progressing through a product development process. The OIM has recently filed its first non-provisional patent in the US, Canada and Europe, and a provisional patent filing looks likely for another invention.
As we continue to evolve, we expect even more health care solutions to come our way. As a result, we formed the OSF Innovation Studio, a new approach that will support ambitious mandates, resources and leadership. This is a purposeful move to leverage our growing entrepreneurial expertise and partnerships to move concepts more quickly through the innovation process.
Why OSF Innovation Studio?
During the “Golden Age” of cinema, major movie studios created, produced and distributed their own films for decades. Similarly, the OSF Innovation Studio supports the rapid advancement of Mission Partners ideas from exploration to production to implementation or commercialization within and outside the Ministry.
As new ideas come in, we first ensure innovative concepts align with the OSF HealthCare strategy or OSF Innovation focus areas. Ideas can also be based on the everyday experiences Mission Partners face on the front lines of care and operations.
Expanding our outreach
We will continue to invite Mission Partners to submit ideas to the OIM for further evaluation. However, we also want to increase the number of OSF Trailblazer Challenges offered throughout the Ministry where our colleagues can solve identified problems. We are also taking a closer look at internally developed projects that have made a difference for OSF and could provide value for other health systems.
For example, Jump Simulation Medical Visualization originally built the Medical Cart AR app to fill a need for our own clinicians to practice using crash carts, anesthesia carts or other medical containers without opening the physical carts. Outside interest in the app led us to help the team offer the training experience as a subscription service to other health care institutions.
In addition, we are looking for opportunities to partner with other health care systems or companies who are interested in our internally developed concepts to share in production costs, create more robust solutions and expand their impact.
We’re here for Mission Partners
Whether our Mission Partners have a seed of an idea or are already working on applying for a patent, we’ve built the infrastructure to help them create, grow or scale their health care solutions at any stage of development.
Ultimately, we are here to help our Mission Partners solve problems they experience in their everyday work and collaborate with them on opportunities that can transform health care.
Last Updated: February 10, 2022