Connecticut Innovations (CI) and Hartford HealthCare (HHC) today signed an agreement to partner on accelerating digital health solutions and innovative healthcare technologies developed in Connecticut. The agreement formalizes an existing productive relationship between the two organizations, and will allow them to use their respective expertise to identify and invest in companies that are developing solutions to improve health outcomes.
CI is Connecticut’s strategic venture capital arm and the leading source of financing and ongoing support for innovative, growing companies. HHC will provide clinical expertise to enable healthcare innovators to test their concepts and products, accelerate their work, and bring safe, cost-effective healthcare solutions to market.
“We’re thrilled to work with Hartford HealthCare and make it easier for our portfolio companies to work and conduct pilots,” said Matt McCooe, CI’s chief executive officer. “This is win-win-win: Our companies will have the chance to work with HHC’s innovative healthcare team; HHC will work with our companies and provide solutions that can be put to work to enhance care; and CI will build closer relationships and an easier pathway to expand the adoption of proven technology.”
The announcement was made during HHC’s “Innovation Week,” which celebrates how the system is developing advanced tools, working with pioneering partners and advancing fresh approaches to make healthcare more accessible, affordable, equitable and excellent for the people and communities it serves.
“At Hartford HealthCare, we are not waiting for others to ideate, invent and transform. We are active innovators ourselves,” said Jeffrey A. Flaks, HHC’s president and chief executive officer. “We are delighted to work with CI to develop new tools to improve health outcomes for patients and drive advance economic development in Connecticut. Our state can be a hub for technology and innovation.”
New Haven-based CI will use its Innovation Lab to select and identify companies that would benefit from collaboration with HHC. With access to CI’s capital and HHC’s clinical expertise, innovators will have an ecosystem in which they can invent, test and scale their concepts.
Both CI and HHC have worked with the Israel Innovation Authority, creating a pathway for startups to collaborate and develop healthcare solutions using artificial intelligence and machine learning.
“Hartford HealthCare is more than a world-class hospital system, it’s also a major engine of healthcare innovation and economic growth, and this partnership with Connecticut Innovations will expand its role and impact even further,” said Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin. “As a city with a growing healthcare and innovation ecosystem, we’re excited about the opportunities this partnership presents, both for Hartford and for the state as a whole.”
About Connecticut Innovations Inc.
Connecticut Innovations (CI) is Connecticut’s strategic venture capital arm and the leading source of financing and ongoing support for Connecticut’s innovative, growing companies. CI provides venture capital and strategic support for early-stage technology companies, financial support for innovation and collaboration, and connections to its well-established network of partners and professionals. For more information, please visit www.ctinnovations.com.
About Hartford HealthCare
With 37,000 colleagues, Hartford HealthCare’s unified culture enhances access, affordability, equity and expertise. Its care-delivery system — with more than 400 locations serving 185 towns and cities — includes two tertiary-level teaching hospitals, an acute-care community teaching hospital, an acute-care hospital and trauma center, three community hospitals, a behavioral health network, a multispecialty physician group, a clinical care organization, a regional home care system, an array of senior care services, a mobile neighborhood health program and a comprehensive physical therapy and rehabilitation network. On average, Hartford HealthCare touches more than 17,000 lives every single day. The unique, system-wide Institute Model offers a unified high standard of care in crucial specialties at hospital and ambulatory sites across Connecticut offering unparalleled expertise at the most affordable cost. The institutes include: Cancer, Heart & Vascular, Ayer Neuroscience, Orthopedics and Tallwood Urology & Kidney. Visit Hartford HealthCare at www.HartfordHealthCare.org and stay connected through newsletters and social media.