The American Medical Association (AMA) and Sling Health, a student-run biotechnology incubator, have launched a Clinical Problem Database to compile insights from physicians on needed improvements to clinical efficiency and patient care. These real-world experiences are shared with Sling Health’s network of young entrepreneurs to foster medical technology development with attention to the clinical challenges faced by physicians.
Recognizing the importance of physician feedback for healthcare entrepreneurs to improve solutions, the Clinical Problem Database will be an added feature on the AMA’s Physician Innovation Network (PIN), an online community that connects and matches physicians with digital health companies and entrepreneurs.
Since PIN was launched in 2017, more than 3,000 physicians and medical students, as well as roughly 1,800 entrepreneurs, have participated in the online network. Physicians matched with entrepreneurs through PIN have consulted in a range of areas, such as improving operating-room workflow, assisting to eliminate the guesswork for spinal punctures, piloting emerging solutions and identifying developers to co-develop solutions for pressing needs.
Sling Health (formerly IDEA Labs) was founded in 2013 at Washington University in St. Louis, bringing together students, faculty, staff, and local entrepreneurs to tackle unmet needs in healthcare delivery and clinical medicine. It now has seven locations. There have been 25 startups formed out of the program, $6 million raised as outside investment or won as awards, and 40 prototypes demonstrating proofs of concept.
“Physicians and entrepreneurs are passionate about transforming healthcare, and by engaging collaboratively they can advance innovation that makes the health system work better for everyone,” said Michael A. Tutty, Ph.D., M.H.A., group vice president of professional satisfaction and practice sustainability at the AMA, in a prepared statement. “Through our collaboration with Sling Health, the AMA is helping physicians and medical students take on a greater role in driving technology forward that responds to real clinical needs. Gaining insights from physicians will help make medical technology an asset, not a burden.”
