Pediatric Innovation day Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital
Presented by The UH Center for the Clinical Research and Technology (CCRT) and IPI
University Hospitals (UH), together with IPI, organized the first Pediatric Innovation Day at Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital on October 19, 2009. The program was developed to stimulate caregivers to come forward with innovative ideas for new products needed to deliver care to their patients. UH and IPI offered small grants to help selected ideas move forward along the path to commercialization.
The event culminated with Stephen Behm, (UH Director, Technology Management), announcing the winning ideas and the winners presenting their ideas. Each winning clinician was awarded a $5,000 grant certificate. The awardees are as follows:
Faruk Orge, M.D., Asst. Director, Pediatric Ophthalmology & Adult Strabismus, described the Rainbow Speculum, a device to assist clinicians to safely and effectively examine the eyes of infants and neonates.
Kathleen Deakins (MSHA, RRT, NPS), Supervisor Pediatric Respiratory Care, presented An Aerosol Delivery Device for Medication Delivery through a T" Piece Resuscitator.
Andrew Hertz, M.D., Medical Director, Rainbow Call Center, explained The Rainbow Interactive Peddler and Monitor, an exercise system for obese pediatric patients.
Alan Cohen, M.D. , Surgeon-in-Chief, Chief of Pediatric Neurological Surgery, showed a presentation of the Smart Start, an innovative brain retractor to assist pediatric neurosurgeons in treating deep brain tumors.
Over 50 clinicians, clinical department heads, hospitals administrators, and medical technology development professionals attended the grant award presentations. Michael Anderson, M.D., Interim Chief Medical Officer, began the evening by describing the impact of innovation on pediatric medicine. Next, Michael Farrell, President of Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital described some of the innovation programs in which Rainbow is now participating. Ross Trimby, COO of IPI, introduced the Device Innovation initiatives currently underway in IPI and introduced the evening’s Key Note speaker, Joe Jacques. Jacques, Vice President of OrthoPediatrics, spoke on the difficult process of introducing device innovation to the pediatric US market.
The Innovation Day program planning was kicked off two months ago with publicity to announce the opportunity for the grants. Clinicians were reached using e-mails, the monthly in house newsletter, and a new web site. The web site contained all the information needed about the event, including the agenda for the day, the Request for Proposals (RFP). Proposals were limited to three to five pages in order to attract participation from clinicians.
Twelve clinicians requested information on the grants process. Follow-up e-mails were generated to the inquiring clinicians. This process, and the entire event, was managed through the UH Center for Clinical Research & Technology, by Kristen Doud, Ph.D. and the staff of the Office of Technology Management.
A review board was established to evaluate and grade the proposals. The board was composed of two clinicians from Rainbow, a local medical technology entrepreneur, a representative of BioEnterprise, an economic development group in Cleveland, and representatives from IPI. Proposals were graded on clinical impact, safety, development feasibility, marketability, and cost. Winners were notified two days before the event. In order to ease the burden on the awardees, the staff prepared brief (2-3 slides) on each of the winning ideas for the presenters to edit and use for their presentation.
Five organizations were invited to present at a three-hour open house in the afternoon of the 19 th at the Rainbow Performance Center. Clinicians were invited to talk to these organizations about specific ideas and the device-commercialization process.
The organizations participating included:
There was a strong consensus that the program had accomplished several goals
- To facilitate a forum for caregiving to identify and begin development of ideas for needed pediatric devices
- To develop effective innovation strategies for addressing those identified needs;
- To further develop ideas through consultation with medical device commercialization specialists;
- To support four selected innovative device ideas with awarded small grants to move them to the next stage of commercial development; and
- To create a University Hospital vehicle for using innovation to drive improved clinical care.
In the follow-up meeting around the program, based on the reception of the staff and the quality of ideas generated, it was decided that the Innovation Day would become an annual event at University Hospitals. |
