InnovateHealth Yale, a School of Public Health program dedicated to using the principles of entrepreneurship to tackle problems in health and education, held its first “Pitch and Solve” event, learning about health disparities in New Haven and developing technological solutions to combat the problems.
More than 35 clinicians, students and community members gathered at the New Haven Free Public Library to brainstorm solutions. Students came from Yale College, as well as the professional schools, including the Schools of Public Health, Medicine, Forestry and Environmental Studies, and Management.
“We wanted to make the solutions as practical as possible,” says Onyeka Obiocha, a Social Entrepreneurship Fellow at Yale who coordinated the Pitch and Solve event in late November. “We had four clinicians pitch, and then we broke out into groups for a rapid prototyping session, where we asked, ‘Can I define the problem, can I imagine what the solution would look like, and can I sketch out a solution that could be implemented somewhere?’
To address a concern of Kevin Chen, M.D., about getting patients who cannot afford transportation to medical appointments, the group suggested a text messaging service to check in with patients in the lead-up to appointments, and help them coordinate public transportation, as well as an Uber or Lyft-type service that targets high risk patients. Text messaging services were also offered as a way to engage expecting mothers in underserved communities, in response to a pitch by Doug Olson, M.D. Another group devised a mobile phone application that would connect homeless sex offenders with housing options, in response to an idea by David Rosenthal, M.D. To help increase teens participation in their health care, as Hannah Rosenblum, M.D., outlined, mandatory visits to school-based health clinics were presented as an option.
InnovateHealth Yale received a grant from the Aetna Foundation to provide two $10,000 seed grants and a $25,000 prize to students working to develop mobile technological solutions for health disparities.
We are giving students the tools they need not just to affect change, but to navigate the processes they must master to take their ideas from theory into practice.
Martin Klein
According to Obiocha, students who developed promising ideas at the recent Pitch and Solve are preparing to apply for the seed funding to create prototypes for their ideas. InnovateHealth Yale offers a total of $80,000 in funding to student-led ventures that address public health, and awards the yearly Thorne Prize for Social Innovation in Health or Education. Previous winners of the $25,000 prize include the 2014 inaugural winner Khushi Baby, which innovated a wearable technology to promote sustained vaccination programs in rural India; Story Time in 2015 for its proposal to use mobile technology to improve childhood literacy in New Haven; and Spring, a clinical tool pitched in 2016 that diagnoses patients with depression and matches them with suitable treatment.
In addition to events such as this Pitch and Solve, InnovateHealth Yale provides resources, training and professional guidance to students who seek to effect change by using entrepreneurial methods to prevent disease and improve the health of the community, said Martin Klein, director of the program
“We are creating a pipeline for innovation that provides mentoring, seed capital, legal and financial assistance, branding and marketing support,” said Klein. “We are giving students the tools they need not just to affect change, but to navigate the processes they must master to take their ideas from theory into practice.”
To learn more about InnovateHealth Yale, visit its website at http://innovatehealth.yale.edu