Valley Children’s Healthcare to Launch Innovation Program
Madera, California – Valley Children’s Healthcare announced today the launch of a new partnership to provide physicians and staff an opportunity to accelerate new technology, new processes and new equipment ideas that have the potential to transform pediatric healthcare.
Earlier this year, Valley Children’s entered into an agreement with The Innovation Institute, a national, independent medical product incubator and healthcare services provider, to spark innovation across the health network. The Institute’s Innovation Lab is staffed with scientists, doctors and commercialization experts who evaluate ideas, build prototypes, protect them, license them, then take them to market directly or through industry partners. Valley Children’s innovation program, known as George’s Idea Lab, will operate as part of The Innovation Lab.
“Valley Children’s was built on a culture of innovation—our five founding mothers imagined a better way to provide healthcare for children and our healthcare network that we see today is a direct result of their ability to innovate,” explains Valley Children’s Healthcare President and CEO Todd Suntrapak. “Our organization values innovation and collaboration, which directly aligns with The Innovation Institute’s mission to cultivate innovative solutions to transform healthcare.
Valley Children’s staff members are in a unique position to identify needs in the delivery of pediatric healthcare, specifically a product or service that might help ease a child’s hospital experience, enhance recovery or improve outcomes and come up with a potential solution. We’re excited to have a program within our healthcare network that can make these ideas a reality.”
Valley Children’s is The Innovation Institute’s second pediatric health system member owner, joining Children’s Hospital of Orange County, CA. Other member owner investors include Providence St. Joseph Health, Irvine, CA & Renton, WA; Bon Secours Mercy Health, Marriottsvile, MD & Cincinnati, OH; Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, Baton Rouge, LA; and Avera Health, Sioux Falls, SD.
“We are thrilled to be working in collaboration with Valley Children’s Healthcare team to develop and invest in innovative treatments for pediatric patients,” says Innovation Institute President and CEO Joe Randolph.
About Valley Children’s Healthcare
Valley Children’s Healthcare – one of the largest pediatric healthcare networks in the nation – provides Central California’s only high-quality, comprehensive care exclusively for children, from before birth to young adulthood. Our network offers highly specialized medical and surgical services to care for children with conditions ranging from common to the highly complex at its 330-bed stand-alone children’s hospital or in one of their three neonatal units (28 beds) located across the Valley. In addition, the Valley Children’s Healthcare network includes specialty care centers, pediatric primary care practices, urgent care center and women’s health services.
Our family-centered, pediatric services extend from a leading pediatric cancer and blood diseases center on the West Coast, and a pediatric heart center known for its expertise and pioneering treatments, to a Regional Level IV neonatal intensive care unit (NICU), the highest level referral center between Los Angeles and the Bay Area.
Valley Children’s was the first children’s hospital west of the Rockies to receive Magnet Nursing designation, the highest nursing benchmark in the world. With more than 640 physicians and 3,500 staff, Valley Children’s delivers high-quality, comprehensive care to more than 1.3 million children in its 12-county service area.For more information, please visit www.valleychildrens.org.
About The Innovation Institute
The Innovation Institute is an independent, for-profit LLC structured to cultivate innovative solutions to transform healthcare delivery. Its three distinct elements include the Innovation Lab, which taps into physicians, employees, and industry business partners to incubate and commercialize new medical products and ideas; an investment fund; and a shared services group (Enterprise Development Group). The Institute is owned by non-profit health systems who together strive to “do more, with less, for more people.” For more information, visit lab.ii4change.com.
Media Contacts:
Zara Arboleda
Director, Communications and PR
Valley Children’s Healthcare
559-284-0187
ZArboleda@valleychildren.org
Francine Marlenee
Integrated Communications Manager
The Innovation Institute
714-735-4767
francine.marlenee@ii4change.com
