Tampa General Hospital wants to help bridge the gap in cancer care treatment access in rural communities.
The hospital announced the TGH Innovation Challenge in November to help rural patients through "fostering partnerships and supporting" innovative projects, according to a release.Expertise is being sought in areas including care navigation, improved treatment, early detection or care delivery. The challenge works through a partnership with the TGH Innoventures, TGH Cancer Institute and Florida non-profit Synapse.
Synapse seeks to support innovation in Florida by building a community and network of resources. It has organized several Synapse Challenges, which work with businesses or organizations to fix and crowdsource specific issues.
Rachel Feinman, the vice president of innovation and the managing director of TGH Innoventures, said it has wanted to partner with Synapse on a challenge for several years, and they were finally able to make it happen. TGH Innoventures is Tampa General Hospital’s venture capital arm that looks for partnerships and emerging healthcare companies that add clinical, strategic and financial value, according to the release.
"When you do these challenges, I think what you end up seeing is solutions that you never quite thought of before," Feinman said. "That's what I'm most looking forward to, the diversity of ways in which we can get after solving this problem."
It isalso a way to pursue a complicated issue they were encountering. Feinman and other oncology service lines regularly hold brainstorming sessions, and the issue of access to cancer treatment was often discussed as a top priority, she said.
Rural areas have a slower reduction in cancer death rates as compared with urban areas, and almost 15% of Americans live in rural areas. That means 46.2 million people are at different risk levels than centrally located people, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.
"My expectation, our hope, is that we'll use it as an opportunity to support our various (oncology) service lines this year ... and dive into a particular problem where (the service lines)think that we as an organization can really benefit from community engagement, support and ideation around how we solve what's a significant problem, for not just our patients, but really across the industry," Feinman said.
The challenge is looking for solutions that have relevance and a direct impact on this goal. Participants should be realistic and have a clear goal, but they should also be adaptable and scalable, according to a release. Part of the challenge also is to align a strong, collaborative team with the clinical mission and values of the hospital.
"The selection committee is made up of innovation and oncology experts from TGH and from the TGH Cancer Institute to evaluate and make the selection of the finalists and ultimately the winner for the challenge," Feinman said.
Feinman and several other senior-level doctors from TGH institutions, including Usha Menon, the dean of the USF College of Nursing, and Eduardo Sotomayor, the vice president and executive director of the TGH Cancer Institute, comprise the committee.
Applications must be submitted online by Jan. 20, 2024 and are open to anyone. Press materials encourage organizations, companies and community members of "any age or stage" to apply.
Entries may win up to $50,000 in value, depending on the company's needs and criteria. It may receive IT resources, project support, experts, implementation costs and TGH Innoventures support.
There will be an informational Zoom session for prospective applicants on Dec. 6.
