To help develop and accelerate innovative technology to benefit patients, two of the largest health systems in California—Cedars-Sinai Health System and MemorialCare Health System—have announced they are launching a venture capital fund.
The investment fund—called Summation Health Ventures— provides a gateway for entrepreneurs to develop, refine, and advance product development. The partnership leverages an extensive network of human capital and organizational resources offered by MemorialCare and Cedars-Sinai hospitals, physicians and other clinicians, information technology professionals, administrative staff and hundreds of locations throughout Southern California.
Strategic investments will focus on start-up, privately-held, early- to mid-stage healthcare companies with a proven and experienced management team, revenue growth potential and products and services that can improve performance and achieve success in the marketplace, according to officials.
"The partnership offers a remarkable platform for entrepreneurs to gain the medical and technological insights critical for widespread adoption of products that positively impact healthcare," Brant Heise, Summation Health Ventures managing director, said in a news release statement. "Highly respected health systems like MemorialCare and Cedars aligned in one strategic investment and innovation vehicle provide multiple opportunities, resources and locations for entrepreneurs to review and bring to market products and services that can positively impact healthcare consumers and organizations. We offer an ideal approach to accelerate innovation while delivering specific, tangible and strategic value."
MemorialCare and Cedars-Sinai together have a total of seven hospitals with about 2,500 licensed beds, 4,700 affiliated physicians, 21,600 employees and 250 healthcare provider locations serving two million patients annually. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and MemorialCare's Long Beach Memorial/Miller Children's Hospital Long Beach are home to the West's two largest teaching hospital campuses and California's largest emergency-trauma centers. Miller Children's is the state's biggest children's hospital. The network also includes community hospitals and scores of physician groups, outpatient facilities, imaging and ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care and a health plan.
"Patient-centered information technologies are essential tools to providing the highest quality of care," Thomas M. Prisleac, Cedars-Sinai's president and CEO, said in a statement. "This partnership between Cedars-Sinai and MemorialHealth will foster extraordinary innovation that will help physicians, nurses, other healthcare professionals and patients locally and around the nation."
