The Nicholson Foundation and Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, are teaming up for a competition that they’re hoping can improve health care delivery for the better. The goal is to encourage healthcare entrepreneurship ideas.
The two-day event, titled “Health Care Delivery Idea-thon,” will take place on October 13 and October 27, 2014 on the Rutgers Douglas Campus. It will encourage teams of Rutgers faculty, students, and staff to brainstorm and create solutions for improving health care delivery and health outcomes in New Jersey.
According to the event website, there are many social, economic, and environmental factors – including racial discrimination, homelessness, and poverty – that can cause illness and premature death in vulnerable populations. Oftentimes, health care is more expensive and less accessible for these populations. However, the Health Care Delivery Idea-thon is trying to change that.
The event requires participants to form multi-disciplinary teams that will work together to generate ideas for new technologies or programmatic innovations in the industry, as well as identify solutions for issues that plague the current health care system, such as cost and accessibility. The teams will then pitch their ideas to a panel of expert judges. Team sign-ups are available through the event website.
As incentive, the top three groups that come up with the most innovative and applicable ideas are rewarded with $5,000, and consultations with Idea-thon organizers and health care experts to discuss how to develop their ideas even further.
Following the Idea-thon, the teams will refine and develop their ideas over the course of the next six months. They will be judged again in a Healthcare Innovation Competition to be held next Spring and the highest-rated team wins $50,000. The prize goes toward planning, developing and implementing the winning project in a health care or community setting affiliated with Rutgers.
But beyond the prize money, the end goal of the Idea-thon is to make a real-world difference by improving health care for vulnerable populations on a local and global scale. They hope to find long-term solutions that can positively change health care delivery.
For more information on the Idea-thon and the Healthcare Competition, go to: http://www.health2con.com/devchallenge/rutgers-the-nicholson-foundation-healthcare-delivery-innovation-idea-thon-2014/
