Hartford Healthcare Partnership Focuses on Digital Health Innovation

December 09, 2022 - Hartford HealthCare (HHC) and venture capital firm Connecticut Innovations (CI) signed a collaboration agreement to advance digital health innovation for 20 new startups throughout Connecticut.

The agreement reinforces an existing relationship between the two organizations and will allow each partner to identify and invest in companies developing solutions to improve health outcomes.

“We’re thrilled to work with Hartford HealthCare and make it easier for our portfolio companies to work and conduct pilots,” Matt McCooe, chief executive officer of CI, said in a press release. “This is win-win-win: Our companies will have the chance to work with HHC’s innovative healthcare team; HHC will work with our companies and provide solutions that can be put to work to enhance care; and CI will build closer relationships and an easier pathway to expand the adoption of proven technology.”

As the strategic venture capital arm, CI will be the leading source of financing and ongoing support for innovative companies. Additionally, CI will leverage its Innovation Lab to select and identify companies that would benefit from this support.

“We are delighted to work with CI to develop new tools to improve health outcomes for patients and drive advance economic development in Connecticut. Our state can be a hub for technology and innovation,” said Jeffrey A. Flaks, president and chief executive officer of HHC.

HHC will offer its clinical expertise to assist Connecticut-based startups in testing concepts and products to bring cost-effective healthcare solutions to patients, the organizations stated.

The press release further indicates that knowledge-sharing between HHC and CI is also central to the partnership.

Several startups that have been announced as program participants include CYtoVeis, Holistic Hospital Optimization, Ibex, Lineus Medical, Wellinks, and Upfront.

“As we celebrate Innovation Week, partnering with startups is key to finding creative solutions to complex problems in healthcare,” says Barry Stein, MD, chief clinical innovation officer and chief medical informatics officer of HHC. “When startups start here, they have the unique opportunity to utilize HHC’s robust clinical innovation ecosystem to not only accelerate their company, but to truly change the world, ensuring that healthcare is safer, more affordable and equitable for everyone.”

This collaboration is the latest to focus on healthcare IT development and innovation. Several weeks prior, Wolters Kluwer inked a partnership with Microsoft to enable digital health innovation by combining Wolters Kluwer’s market-leading solutions and the Microsoft Azure cloud platform.

Additionally, the partnership will give payers access to EmmiGuide, an interactive engagement solution that utilizes empathetic approaches to create more informed patients.