Pre-emptive Innovation Infrastructure for Medical Emergencies: Accelerating Healthcare Innovation in the Wake of a Global Pandemic

Frontiers in Digital Health

Khalil B. Ramadi³  Shriya S. Srinivasan⁵ 

[1] Department of Mechanical Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States;Division of Engineering, New York University Abu Dhabi, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates;Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology and Endoscopy, Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, United States;Hacking Medicine, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States;Society of Fellows, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States;Tandon School of Engineering, New York University, New York, NY, United States;

关键词: innovation infrastructure;    translational medical research;    health innovation system;    pre-emptive innovation;    hackathon;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fdgth.2021.648520

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Healthcare innovation is impeded by high costs, the need for diverse skillsets, and complex regulatory processes. The COVID-19 pandemic exposed critical gaps in the current framework, especially those lying at the boundary between cutting-edge academic research and industry-scale manufacturing and production. While many resource-rich geographies were equipped with the required expertise to solve challenges posed by the pandemic, mechanisms to unite the appropriate institutions and scale up, fund, and mobilize solutions at a time-scale relevant to the emergency were lacking. We characterize the orthogonal spatial and temporal axes that dictate innovation. Improving on their limitations, we propose a “pre-emptive innovation infrastructure” incorporating in-house hospital innovation teams, consortia-based assembly of expertise, and novel funding mechanisms to combat future emergencies. By leveraging the strengths of academic, medical, government, and industrial institutions, this framework could improve ongoing innovation and supercharge the infrastructure for healthcare emergencies.

【 授权许可】

Unknown