The Sisters Of Providence Carving Out HIT Niche

By Christine Kern, contributing writer

Providence Health is creating a $150 million venture capital fund to nurture EHRs and MU.

Providence Health & Services announced the launch of a venture capital fund aimed at driving innovations across the healthcare system to improve quality and convenience, lower cost, and create better health outcomes. “We have to find better solutions faster if we are going to help people access higher quality, lower cost care in a more convenient way,” said Rod Hochman, MD, president and CEO of Providence Health & Services.

“Consumers want quality and convenience, competitive costs and better health outcomes. We aren’t going to find real change through the traditional lens of health system practices that only improve things incrementally. We need to change faster.”

Providence Ventures will invest $150 million over five to seven years in innovations across the healthcare system that will improve patient care. The fund will target early- to mid-stage companies that focus on six core areas: online primary care access, care coordination and patient engagement, chronic disease management, clinician experience, data analytics, and consumer health and wellness services.

“Consumers are now comparison-shopping, reading reviews, and purchasing health care online. This trend will only accelerate as it has in every other industry. Consumers will demand more value, quality and convenience from the health care provider they choose just as they do with any other aspect of their lives,” said Aaron Martin, senior vice president of strategy and innovation.

“At Providence, we’re looking both inside and outside of health care for innovations that can be applied to create a better health care system and healthier communities. We are excited to be leading this change in our region.”

To support the venture fund endeavors, Providence is taking a unique approach and creating its own internal Digital Innovation Group to build the technology and processes needed to support collaborations with early-stage companies, develop a consistent customer- and clinician-facing experience, and innovate in areas where there are gaps in the technology marketplace.

“We are marrying the cultures of software innovation with health care delivery to create big ideas, build them using small-batch innovations and learn quickly in a rigorous, data-driven way,” said Martin. “Traditionally, collaborating with health care providers around digital technology has been difficult. We aim to change that by building a technical infrastructure and team that will make it easier for early-stage technology companies to collaborate with us so that we can improve health care delivery faster.”

Providence leaders do not only want to “buy ideas but also build innovations,” so the fund will include a digital innovation group led by Mark Long, a former NASA engineer who’s spent the past decade at a range of tech companies, most recently at a clinical decision support startup and at Amazon’s internal logistics services startup.

“This is a part of our heritage,” said Dr. Hochman. “The Sisters of Providence, who came to the Pacific Northwest 158 years ago, were innovators and advocates of the belief that health care is a basic human right. At Providence, we carry on this tradition of mission-driven innovation.”