How did you decide to make the Healthcare innovation arena your career?
In December of 2013, a private equity group in southern California acquired MedPassage, and I went on vacation to celebrate my successful exit from the company. Upon returning to Denver, I received a call from Jake Rishavy, one of the founders of Prime Health. Jake informed me that he and Jeffrey Nathanson, Prime Health’s CEO at the time, wanted my help in turning Prime Health into a statewide organization. Rock Health had just identified Colorado as one of the nation’s top-ten digital health clusters in the nation, and Jake and Jeffrey planned to enhance our ranking by extending Prime Health’s reach from Denver to the entire state.
While working with Prime Health to make Jake and Jeffrey’s vision a reality, I gained a unique perspective on the inner dynamics of startup communities. I met the founders of innovative early stage companies who were using digital health technology to significantly improve care while dramatically lowering its cost. And I observed established healthcare organizations waking up to the possibility of a widespread transformation of the American healthcare system.
A series of questions started running through my mind. How could we bring everyone in the healthcare industry together – from single-person startups to Fortune 20 organizations – to accelerate innovation? How could we take the collaborations made possible by Prime Health’s monthly meetings and turn them into an everyday reality? And, most importantly, how could we give the health-tech community – this growing collection of technologists, clinicians, and entrepreneurs from across the healthcare industry – a home?
And that’s when I knew what I had to do.
INTEGRATING THE HEALTHCARE INDUSTRY
Catalyst HTI is not an incubator. We house them. It’s not an accelerator, either. And it definitely is not just another coworking space (that’s just our 4th floor of 7 total floors).
Catalyst HTI is an Industry Integrator- bringing together Fortune 100 to a woman with an idea at the point of innovation, under one roof, to reimagine the healthcare industry by doing it together.
Can you share an example or two where you feel you have moved the industry that maybe a few years earlier would have been hard to imagine?
My best example is the launch of Catalyst HTI, a healthcare ecosystem of 81 entrepreneurial and established organizations housed in one building dedicated exclusively to transforming healthcare. Branded as a “healthcare industry integrator”, Catalyst opened its doors in summer 2018 following nearly five years of planning.
The seven-story, 180,000-square-foot facility covers an entire city block in Denver’s River North neighborhood. Tenants include a host of startups along with Kaiser Permanente, UCHealth, MGMA, Prime Health, the American Osteopathic Association, Delta Dental, CORHIO, the University of Denver, Velóce Corporation, Hitachi Consulting and Innova Emergency Medical Associates, to name a few.
This campus speaks to the human DNA,” “We all want to be part of something bigger than ourselves. And guess what? We’ve lost that in healthcare. We all came to this industry with altruistic goals and mindsets of wanting to do good, and we all did the right things — and the system has beaten us down and is bankrupting our country.
What is the key to getting our nation’s health systems to collaborate with each other, suppliers and technology providers in a much more meaningful way?
I am a big fan of Brad Fell (Founder of Techstars and Foundry Group) and his notion of “give first”, and “give first” in all that we do. This notion should permeate all stakeholders to truly re-imagine healthcare. Its imperative we knock down silos in the spirit of collaboration. Simply put, we need to herald the value of community to all the stakeholders involved in healthcare.
If you could tell our nation’s health system leaders one thing, what would it be?
I would tell our nation’s leaders that we can in fact reimagine the health of our nation, and make it sustainable, IF/WHEN we truly begin to work together, tear the silos down that are holding us back, and form partnerships across the spectrum (with patients also included!) in order to unlock the mysteries of one of the most complex industries in our nation.
Take a look in your crystal ball in say 3-5 years, how does the world look different thanks to your work in innovation and the good work of Catalyst HTI?
I hope within the next 3-5 years, through being dedicated in tearing the silos down, the innovation community and the healthcare incumbents have FINALLY solved the interoperability issues (or severe lack thereof) that are holding our industry back. There is no doubt we have the capabilities, we just need ALL stakeholders to jump in the same boat and start rowing in the same direction.
Sure- there are many other massive needs for our industry, but just imagine how much interoperability across the industry touches so many aspects of it. It’s an enormous problem and will go to help solve many others!