A Collaborative Ecosystem

This is especially true in the healthcare sector, where significant workloads and regulation and oversight act as barriers to innovation. Perhaps it is for these reasons that the healthcare sector lags behind in digital transformation. Yet, opportunities for innovation abound.

Technology and AI-driven solutions can address challenges such as managing the massive amounts of data generated in healthcare, the shortage of healthcare professionals, and the increasing complexities in care pathways.

Co-creating with ecosystem partners is an effective way to pool the ideas, skills, and resources required for meaningful innovation in healthcare. By fostering an ecosystem of innovators, healthcare companies can implement and adopt novel digital solutions in their hospital workflows.

Startups from industries like automotive and aerospace are now entering the healthcare domain, realizing the potential for applying their expertise. However, many of these newcomers struggle to identify the right use cases or understand the medical and clinical domains. To address this, GE HealthCare bridges the gap between digital innovators and healthcare providers. By bringing these two worlds together, they can collaboratively develop effective solutions for specific use cases.

Through design thinking workshops, the company identifies the most pressing healthcare delivery problems and co-create solutions within a defined timeframe. The goal is to build digital solutions that can be successfully implemented into healthcare systems. They have found the collaborative approach to be effective in driving positive change in healthcare.

Working with a few startups and healthcare providers on specific problems carries the risk of creating customized solutions that may not be easily scalable or applicable in other healthcare systems. To address this, validation partners, such as healthcare institutions from different countries and categories, are involved for a second opinion. Their outside perspective helps ensure that solutions are not only problem-solving but also commercially scalable across various healthcare systems worldwide.

Selected startups are following a structured process that includes several milestones at which an assessment is made to continue or not. The ultimate objective is to help these companies commercialize their solutions, integrating them technically into the GE Healthcare platform and establishing distribution agreements.

The selection process is rigorous, ensuring that only a small number of startups are chosen. This allows for focused support and collaboration, including technical integration, generating feedback from healthcare providers, running pilots, and seeking distribution agreements for successful solutions. The aim is to maximize the business growth of the startups by leveraging the resources, expertise, and funding available.

The number of startups in the program is kept low also due to the heavy workload of healthcare institutions and providers. These institutions are often overwhelmed, resulting in long waiting times for appointments and limited availability of clinicians and nurses during their day-to-day duties.

GE HealthCare does not pay startups to join the program nor do they pay healthcare providers to participate. Instead, they focus on providing value in other ways, such as expertise, guidance, and connecting startups with experts in the field. They have a clear understanding of the value proposition for each potential partner.

GE HealthCare invests a significant amount of time and effort in the preparation phase of the program, which takes about six months. This preparation is crucial to ensure the program's success from the beginning.

The innovation team, startup accelerator team, and collaboration team at GE Healthcare are made up of volunteers. These individuals have day jobs in different business units within the company but dedicate a few hours each week to work on the program. The team's passion and drive to make an impact contribute to the success of the program. In healthcare, running such a program provides access to a diverse group of experts in the medical and technology fields.

These individuals receive visibility in front of leadership and external events, creating opportunities for growth and development.

The program is also utilized as a stretch assignment in different leadership programs, ensuring a constant stream of talented individuals to work with. The presence of an advisory board helps guide and steer the program towards its vision and objectives.