Nearly one year to the day that Tampa General Hospital announced it would be launching a $15 million, innovation-focused investment fund, officials revealed its first investment and shared a progress update.
TGH President and CEO John Couris and Rachel Feinman, TGH’s vice president of innovation, discussed the fund on Monday night during a panel with CIO Scott Arnold and Jason Swodoba, associate director of emerging technologies and health innovation.
“I looked at John Touchton [former chair of TGH’s Board of Directors] and said we need a vehicle inside the walls of our institution to help invest in our entrepreneurs, in our scientists, in administrators doing novel, innovative world-solving real problems,” Couris said, referencing the start of the InnoVentures fund. “Because health care is going through this seismic shift right now, it’s no longer bigger is better — it’s better is better.”
TGH has made its first investment, starting with New York-based Enroute. It has called itself the “Uber of patient transportation within a hospital.”
“Transporters are a critical resource and keep your length of stay in check,” Swodoba said during the panel. “We found a company that does exactly that. It looks where the transporter physically is at and looks at the queue and sees where the transporter is closer to.”
Enroute is the first participant of TGH’s Co-Labs program, a health care startup-focused incubator of sorts that accepts applications on a rolling basis. The companies will be given a paid pilot program and access to coaches at TGH and Embarc Collective in exchange for a small piece of company equity.
“One of the exciting opportunities InnoVentures provides us is a way to be incentivized in a way that hasn’t otherwise,” Feinman said. “We’re incentivized to share that company and the success we’re having with TGH with other health care systems around the country ... Maybe before our only incentive was to negotiate with the vendor on a price, but now we’re motivated to put it out to improve health care because we’re also an investor.”
TGH officials hope to have roughly four startups per year go through the Co-Lab program. Companies need to be in the earlier stages, serve an area of focus at the hospital, have less than a handful of customers and in some cases, be able to integrate into the TGH system.
“You turn rocks over and look for the thorny issues no one wants to get after; they’re not very sexy, it’s not an app, but it is to help the problems plaguing health care,” Couris said. “We want to solve real problems that will improve the quality of care and engage this community in those conversations.”
TGH is also making an “indirect investment” with Texas and California-based Virtue Ventures, a health care-focused venture firm. TGH is specifically working with Venture’s founder and general partner, Sean Doolan.
“He has an incredible reputation for finding really early stage and disruptive health care companies that we think are important for TGH, both to bring into the system as well as help us understand the competitive landscape that is health care,” Feinman said.
The group unveiled its space at startup hub Embarc Collective, nestled in downtown Tampa, that will serve as a landing spot for entrepreneurs and mentors to meet. Feinman hopes the space can also be a beacon for the work in health care innovation across the region.
“Our partnership with Embarc is part of our commitment to, and support of, our local ecosystem of startups and investors and frankly growing health care-focused innovation ecosystem,” she said. “Some of our value is in attracting startups, investors and other players in the space to understand what an important hub Tampa Bay can be.”
