Innov8 for Health Challenge spurs innovation, jobs

It's a tall order to create jobs, improve health and retain talent through a healthcare innovation challenge, but the new Innov8 for Health Challenge aims to do just that.

Designed as an annual occurrence, Innov8 for Health will hold three community-wide events promoting healthcare innovation to solve a specific problem. The initiative involves developing a solution, building a business plan around it, and a shot at receiving startup funding to make the idea a reality. The challenge is already underway, and Innov8 is currently accepting ideas that address "transitions in care" this December.

"We already have incubators and accelerators here in Cincinnati, and there is a lot of healthcare innovation going on. But we want to build on what is already here, and specifically help spur the healthcare innovation infrastructure," says one of the event's organizers Sunnie Southern, founder of ViableSynergy.

Criag F. Osterhues, health care manager for GE Aviation, is also helping organize the event. Other planners include reps from C-Cap, and Queen City Angels, Biostart, Taft law firm and the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati.

Innov8 hopes to uncover tech-based solutions to problems that arise when a person moves from one care setting to the next -- from a hospital to nursing home, from the hospital to home, from high school to college. They can include difficulties with cooking, medications or even personal safety. Lack of a successful transition often means repeat trips to hospitals, which translates into higher healthcare costs.

"It's a very big issue for the country,” Southern says. “A study in 2004 in the New England Journal of Medicine showed it cost Medicare $17.4 billion."

The Innov8 for Health Challenge is accepting ideas to solve transition to care problems through Nov. 28 at its website. Open to students and entrepreneurs, the best ideas will be part of a public Innov8 Idea Expo and contest Dec. 2. Winners will be selected to participate in a Business Concept Expo next spring. Finally, the top concepts will be pitched to a panel and potential investors during the Launch Pad event in summer 2012.

By Feoshia Henderson