A corporate or Central Research Lab (CRL) for hospital systems

Large hospital systems (especially multi-hospital organizations and large, university-based hospitals) have made great strides in adopting new technology in areas such as: imaging, surgery, medical records, and others. However, there is still a major gap in comparison to industry, defense, and other fields. One reason for the gap is the lack, in most hospital systems, of a high quality, unified "portal" for new and improved technology that can serve across the various "silo" units in the system-the individual hospitals and specialties (e.g., surgery, medical, emergency, pediatrics, maternity, cardiac, etc.). Although a lot of new technology does get into the system, there is still a series of barriers to smooth transition, often characterized as the "valley of death" in technology transfer. Specialists are often absorbed in their own, often very specific and narrow, fields of supporting technology. They often do not have the time or motivation or channels to seek potentially useful technology outside their own specialties and organizations (e.g., individual hospitals). Based on our several decades of research (at Northwestern University) and consulting with industry and government (through IASTA, Inc.) we see the opportunity to bring the concept of the CRL into large and multi-hospital healthcare organizations. We are currently working on five elements of the design for a CRL: (1) form of the CRL; (2) problem focus; (3) project portfolio; (4) interactions with technology sources; and (5) size of the CRL.