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12/15/14 | Uncategorized

Passionate About Health Care? Harvard Wants to Give You $25k in Startup Funding

Harvard Medical School’s Center for Primary care is giving away $25k in startup funding!

women2-sponsored-blog-postIf you are passionate about applying your unique expertise to the domain of health care, then we want to give you up to $25,000 in startup funding, opportunities to co-create with patients, design-thinking tools, and exclusive access to world-class mentorship.

Imagine this: You are worried about several health issues and call to book an appointment with a primary care physician. The next available opening is in three weeks. When that day arrives, you wait for thirty minutes past your scheduled time. Finally you see the doctor, who is overburdened and frustrated that your complete medical records are not available on the computer. After only ten minutes, you are out the door with a prescription in hand. When you bring it to a pharmacy, you are informed that your insurance does not cover the medications and have to pay out of pocket. You feel helpless and frustrated by the whole experience.

Unfortunately, this is a familiar scenario for many people. Consider these statistics: 31% of US patients report leaving their doctor’s office without getting answers to their important health questions, 28% are given the wrong medication or experience some other medical error, and 35% do not fill their prescriptions because of the cost. Likewise, a recent review showed that 73% of patients cannot easily contact their physicians by phone and do no experience timely office visits. 65 million Americans live in areas where there is only one doctor for every 2000 people. Furthermore, the number of primary care practitioners will increase by only 2-7% in the next ten years, even though the demand for them will increase by 24% and their workload will increase by 29%. Indeed, the health care situation in the US is bleak.

However, it also presents a tremendous opportunity for innovation and progress. Now, more than ever before, we are called to create an effective, quality health care system. Despite the struggles, new ideas and methods are being imagined and implemented around the country and the effects are starting to be seen. For example, the number of hospital errors in the US decreased by 17% between 2010 and 2013. To stimulate these and other exciting changes, the Harvard Medical School Center for Primary Care is dedicated to facilitating health care entrepreneurship. To date, we have improved care for 275,000 patients at 20 primary care practices in the Greater Boston Area. Moving forward, we are devoted to inciting impact on a national scale, and we want YOU to be at the forefront of this

You could be among the first innovators in a cutting-edge new initiative at Harvard Medical School. Namely, InciteHealth aims to catalyze the design and development of health care solutions, which could be anything from a novel technology or diagnostic methodology to an improved care delivery process or business model for primary care.

This opportunity is open to visionaries and trailblazers from any profession, such as design, programming, engineering, or behavioral science. No previous experience with health care is necessary. Innovators will partner with InciteHealth in a flexible, part-time capacity over one year, while still maintaining full-time careers.

We look forward to supporting you as you invent and launch the future of American health care.

See here for more information. Applications are being accepted until January 9, 2015.

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