New program will identify healthcare challenges and create solutions
by March 16, 2022 12:14 pm 817 views
In collaboration with regional healthcare leaders, the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville is creating a program that focuses on healthcare industry challenges and possible solutions.
According to a UA news release Wednesday (March 16), the Northwest Arkansas Biodesign Sprints (NABS) program is a partnership with the university’s Office of Entrepreneurship and Innovation (OEI), the biomedical engineering department, HealthTech Arkansas and four Northwest Arkansas regional healthcare systems.
HealthTech Arkansas is a startup incubator and new business accelerator. The statewide program seeks to bring new medical innovations to market by offering something many competitors don’t: pilot projects in hospitals and clinics to test early-stage products, services and software.
NABS is funded by a $685,330 grant from the Walton Family Foundation and is housed at the Collaborative in Bentonville and is modeled after the Byers Center for Biodesign at Stanford University.
“The NABS program was born out of our experiences working intensively with Arkansas Children’s Hospital and Research Institute over the last 18 months,” OEI executive director Sarah Goforth said in a statement. “With the benefit of partners at Arkansas Children’s who were willing to be out front in the creation of new ways of driving innovation, we learned that problems and ideas often lie dormant in the minds of busy clinicians who may not have avenues to advance them. This is fertile ground for innovation.”
NABS will initially partner with four hospitals and health systems: Arkansas Children’s, Washington Regional Medical Center, Mercy and Northwest Health.
More details are available at this link.