Soroka University Medical Center, part of Clalit Health Services, is the natural place to develop healthcare companies. It combines knowledge and experience, comprehensive data, rich research, an environment that allows for clinical validation, and an entrepreneurial spirit.
The world of medicine is constantly searching for technologies and solutions to improve and expand services for the benefit of patients. In order to leverage new technologies and provide advanced, effective quality services for the residents living in the south of Israel, Soroka University Medical Center is establishing an innovation center that will promote the creation and development of unique solutions in the world of healthcare. “We have reached a point where the combination of computer systems, diverse information sources together with clinical, nursing, and rehabilitative knowledge and experience create a tremendous opportunity to establish groundbreaking projects in the world of healthcare. At Soroka, we are leveraging the assets that have accumulated over decades and are leading three main tracks to encourage entrepreneurship. The first is collaboration with external parties. The second is internal entrepreneurship, and the third is promoting joint research and building ventures based on applied research. These three tracks are operating in parallel to seed and nurture solutions for the benefit of improving service and public health,” said Yarden Nevo, Associate Director-General of the medical center.
The Innovation Center - “City Square,” where clinical excellence, applied research and entrepreneurial spirit meet
The Innovation Center will be located in the heart of the hospital, in a unique building covering 600 square meters that will be adapted for the needs of these activities. The building is in its advanced architectural stages and will be completed during the first half of 2022. The new complex will enable cross-pollination of ideas between the various stakeholders, including hospital staff, researchers from academia, students from multiple clinical and technological disciplines, and external partners such as start-ups and technology companies. In addition, the center will seek collaboration with government, social, and environmental entities who will work together on integrated projects to develop solutions for a better medical future. The Innovation Center will focus on a number of key areas, including personalized medicine, cyber for health systems, improving patient experience and the human-machine interface, artificial intelligence, data-driven solutions, remote/Telemedicine, and digital health.
Providing external companies quick and convenient access to services
The hospital is opening its doors to joint research activities with start-up companies and will provide a wide range of value-added services such as access to experts based on knowledge and experience accumulated at the hospital to validate ideas and provide advice to companies at various stages. Soroka is the second-largest hospital in Israel, operating the most-active delivery rooms (17,000 births per year), dealing with the highest number of referrals in Israel to emergency rooms (250,000 per year), and operating 14 internal laboratories providing services to a population of over one million people. Soroka is unique in this respect because it serves as the main hospital for the entire population in the area. The data it possesses contains all the tests and medical processes that a person undergoes from birth and throughout all stages of life. As part of the research activities, a team of data scientists enables speedy access to the data of any dedicated target audience from the vast databases, thus enabling efficient work in development processes.
Companies that work together with the hospital will enjoy consulting services from entities in the business, legal and financial fields and receive assistance in raising venture capital. The center will provide them with access to an advanced workspace that includes meeting rooms, lounge areas, and tools for team activities. “It is important to note that we are open to collaborations with companies at various stages, from beginning companies that can be assisted by clinical advice and access to databases for building solutions, through companies that have already developed their solution and are interested in validating and collecting feedback from users or conducting clinical trials and even companies who are in commercial stages. We are aware of the challenges involved in collaboration with hospitals and therefore accompany the processes required to obtain regulatory and other approvals and enable fast-paced work. Our role as a leading center for medical services and a source of knowledge and clinical excellence is to remove barriers and simplify processes in order to enable the hospital to become the natural place where start-up companies in the field of health are established,” adds Yarden Nevo.
Innovation through collaborations with external parties
“The hospital is an integral part of the social, economic, and community fabric of the southern region. Most of our employees are residents of the area, and we see great importance in the involvement of regional factors in the activities of the Innovation Center. From this point of view, the consulting services in the center will be provided by selected companies located in the southern region. If possible, students born and raised in the south will be involved in setting up new ventures. We want to increase the number of ventures operating in the south, expanding the number of people who think, talk and lead entrepreneurship processes. The hospital is a key partner in regional processes for promoting innovation and initiatives led by the Beersheva Municipality. For example, Soroka was chosen to lead the digital health sector within the city’s innovation district. We view the establishment of the Innovation Center as a preliminary stage and an integral part of urban expansion and the promotion of regional entrepreneurship,” says Mr. Shachar Hefetz, director of the Soroka Innovation Center. The innovation activity within the hospital will be incorporated into collaborations with the involved entities in the innovation district to expand the aggregate benefit. Another opportunity for the involvement of external parties comes from the mutual exploration of challenges by Soroka and information, communication technology, and intelligence army units that will occupy the military bases adjacent to the hospital. This opportunity will create cross-fertilization and entrepreneurship based on integrated knowledge and experience in the fields of cyber for the world of health, analysis of multiple sources of information, dealing with extreme climatic conditions, global warming, and more.
An example of cooperation with external parties that is already operational can be seen in the agreement signed between Soroka Medical Center and IAI’s Elta Company. The joint work between the organizations began with identifying challenges that arise from the hospital staff, challenges that have undergone a process of screening, sorting, and evaluation of the potential and future clinical value. “The goal is to reach the market as quickly as possible with solutions that have a significant impact, so we connect challenges that arise from real needs in the field of clinical practice to knowledge and experience already gained in Elta in developing advanced products and converting them to medical needs. We are already seeing the initiation of projects that show significant potential for improving the face of medicine,” says Dr. Amit Frenkel, Director of the Unit for Screening and Managing Patients at Risk and Head of Innovation at the Hospital.
Employees are the most important asset – leading internal innovation
David Ben-Gurion said, “In the Negev, Israel’s creative and pioneering strength will be tested - and this test will be fateful.” “We at Soroka agree with this statement, and we decided to invest substantial resources in building the framework that will allow creativity and the spirit of pioneering and entrepreneurship to be developed in a supportive environment. Doctors, nurses, social workers, nutritionists, and other hospital workers are a vast source of knowledge that experiences the challenges on a daily basis and is in the best place to offer solutions.
Some of the processes that the Innovation Center will promote will include training in entrepreneurship for the various teams, transferring knowledge on topics such as tools for evaluating new ideas, market and competitors’ analysis, design thinking, sources of financing ventures, and more. The framework will allow hospital staff to advance ideas, examine business viability and assess the potential for setting up ventures. The Innovation Center will provide the supportive envelope and accompany the teams in their journey and early stages of project inception.”
From advanced applied research to groundbreaking ventures
“Soroka is a leading university medical center in various research fields and conducts hundreds of studies a year. The fact that the hospital has strong ties and a tradition of collaboration with Ben-Gurion University creates fertile ground for advancing research areas involving multidisciplinary teams from the hospital and the academic framework. Recently, as part of this collaboration, an agreement was signed between the technology transfer office at the university and the hospital to promote activities in the field of bio convergence. This field is gaining momentum and includes combining biology with tools and engineering methods from other disciplines such as electronics, artificial intelligence, computational biology, physics, materials science and more,” says Professor Victor Novack, director of Soroka Clinical Research Center and director of the Department of Internal Medicine H in Soroka. The hospital will examine the possibility of establishing ventures based on applied research, conduct market analyses, and explore the economic feasibility of building products, services, and technologies for the benefit of public health. The intention is to develop applied research by setting up a team that will build a prototype, map the market from a business perspective, and raise capital in the free market.
For many years, there have been those who foresaw the potential of the Negev, “In the Negev, the people of Israel and its state will be tested –only with a collaborative effort can we accomplish our great mission of settling the desert, and making it bloom. This effort will determine the fate of the State of Israel and the status of our people in the history of humanity (Ben Gurion 1955).”
We are here to contribute, pull our weight and support the processes that will help in turning the vision into reality.
This article was written in cooperation with Soroka