Women Who Wow | Things That Make Life So Much Better
The LOOK BETTER THAN YOU FEEL CAMISOLE is a one of a kind product, a post-surgical camisole which is the legacy of Kim Newlen.
Kim Newlen was 47 and enjoying life with her husband and daughter in Richmond, VA when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Following her mastectomy, she was unable to find anything to wear that was comfortable, and capable of supporting and concealing the drains that were fitted at the surgical site. This experience led her to design and create the Look Better Than You Feel post-surgical camisole. The camisole that Kim designed is a stylish, comfortable, and incredibly functional garment for breast cancer patients and survivors.
Wishing to help other survivors, she spearheaded the effort to bring the product to market and make it available to women. Kim was successful early in this effort, selling product via her website, but unfortunately Kim could not overcome her cancer and passed away in 2014. Her husband and daughter wished to honor Kim’s legacy and continue her mission to make the product available to as many women as possible through a partnership with Innovation Lab, a healthcare technology incubator located in Newport Beach, California, which aims to do just that. Innovation Lab is a subsidiary of The Innovation Institute, a for-profit company founded in 2013 and owned by 6 non-profit health systems. The Institute is structured to cultivate innovation in collaboration with others, with the goal of transforming healthcare and improving patients’ lives. Innovation Lab, seen as the heart of The Institute, taps into the innovative potential of healthcare system employees, clinicians and the general public to incubate and commercialize new medical products and ideas.
The Biggest lesson that The Innovation Institute has learned is that academic institutions have traditionally been the main source for cutting-edge technology in the medical device space. These institutions can leverage their established infrastructure and the availability of non-dilutive federal and philanthropic funding to support the riskiest stages of discovery. While academic researchers are particularly skilled in creating breakthrough technologies, medical professionals “in the trenches” of community medicine are arguably better suited to identify the most critical needs in healthcare and innovate around potential solutions. Although, they see more patients and are acutely aware of the many gaps and needs in modern healthcare, they are often overlooked as a source for new healthcare innovations. In addition, the daily challenges of delivering affordable, high quality care can be overwhelming, and innovative thinking is often stymied in these environments. The Innovation Lab aims to tap into this unrecognized source of innovation opportunities by providing a venue for community-based (i.e., non-academic) hospital systems to translate unmet needs into transformative medical products. More…
You can learn more about The Innovation Institute on Facebook (@The.Innovation.Institute), Twitter (@ii4change), or YouTube (The Innovation Institute).
