By JESSICA DaMASSA, WTF HEALTH
At HIMSS19, the year-old ‘Digital Health Collaborative’ announced its relaunch as ‘Together.Health.’ More than just a feel-good name, the new moniker is indicative of how the organization is literally trying to help the health innovation world ‘get its #%&! together.’
“We’re building a hub-and-spoke model,” says Stephen Konya of the US Office of the National Coordinator for Health IT (ONC).
He and Nick Dougherty of MassChallenge Health Tech are founding co-chairs for Together.Health and the pair have managed to build a roster of more than 40 different partners – including almost every digital health accelerator and incubator in the country. Add into the mix some of the biggest health innovation investors in the biz, the usual healthcare incumbents, and a number of different government organizations and economic development groups with local, regional, and federal reach and one begins to clearly see how Together.Health is filling a void for ‘spokes’ that were definitely missing the connecting power of a ‘hub.’
But, what’s the real value of all this together-ness? According to Konya and Dougherty, faster uptake for innovation in healthcare.
For example, the organization’s first project is the development of a standard Business Associates Agreement (BAA) for startups and health systems to use to streamline the onerous paperwork process required before piloting or deploying new solutions. This is a process that currently takes 9-12 months and varies by health system. Together.Health thinks they can shorten that timeframe to 2-3 months just by getting the right people into the room and agreeing to keep 80% of the questions in the assessment in a standard format. The idea is meant to help prevent startups from ‘running out of runway’ (and their health system champions from simply ‘running away’ in frustration), while everyone waits for the necessary paperwork to make its way through Legal.
The pragmatism doesn’t stop there. Listen in to my interview with Stephen Konya to hear about the two other challenges Together.Health is taking on this year: putting together a common curriculum for health accelerator programs and mapping the US Health Innovation Ecosystem.
Want to get a jump on learning what’s happening in some of those health innovation pockets in the US? I had the opportunity to interview 10 ecosystem leaders at the Together.Health Spring Summit at HIMSS and the variety of conversations (and concerns) they share is pretty remarkable.
You can check out the whole Together.Health playlist here, or wait for a few of my favs (and their dishy gossip!) to make an appearance here on THCB over the next week.
Get a glimpse of the future of healthcare by meeting the people who are going to change it. Find more WTF Health interviews here or check out www.wtf.health.
from THCB http://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2019/03/13/come-together-health-right-nowover-me/