During my time at the New Orleans Business Alliance (NOLABA) I launched the New Orleans Health Innovators Challenge, a groundbreaking programmatic partnership initiative to connect the top emerging biotech startups in the country with our local healthcare partners. NOLABA’s goal is to grown and promote the city as a digital healthcare innovation hub and accelerate business attraction.
Healthtech startups have the ability to radically transform complex health systems. However, these companies often have a difficult path in gaining pilot partnerships and implementing their technology, not only because of a saturated competitive market, but because health systems are often inundated with pitches and lack organizational structure to implement new technologies. Health systems want to innovate and solve for inherent issues, but lack the bandwidth to dedicate staff to experimental roles given more pressing needs around delivering care.
After securing local health systems as partners, we articulated “Challenge Statements,” or target pain points within their organizations that were ripe for a digital health intervention. I led a team through the recruitment, application, judging, and live Pitch Finale events. The campaign made over 750,000 digital impressions and reached 343 unique companies. NOLAHI connected hospital systems with seven unique companies solving their most pressing needs.
NOLAHI leveled the playing field by bringing these various health systems and startups to the table to collaborate. In forming partnerships between these entities, startups were able to take root by accessing opportunities to pilot, health systems were able to get cutting-edge solutions to articulated business development needs, and our patient population benefited from the best new innovations out there.
Significantly, NOLAHI was awarded the Gold Medal of Excellence by the International Economic Development Council in the category of Business Retention and Expansion. I was also recognized as a Healthy Hero for my work.
Read on to learn more about the initiative.
Community outreach
NOLAHI used a needs-based approach, that began by asking our healthcare partners to determine the areas they most needed support with. Ochsner Health System and Blue Cross Blue Shield saw the program’s potential and came on as a the headlining sponsor of the initiative. In the first year, we recruited hospital systems valued at over $7 billion and the state’s largest insurer. Then, in years two and three, we took on an equity-based healthcare lens, bringing on the New Orleans Health Department in partnership with University Medical Center, as well as the Claiborne Cultural Innovation District (Ujamaa) in partnership with Tulane University.
We also found business, entrepreneurial, technology, and legal leaders who believed in bolstering NOLA’s biotech presence. I’m proud that NOLAHI annually infused over $100,000 in capital to support the growth of programming and business recruitment, and I grew revenue in the second year by 24%.
Challenge Statements
Once we had our Community Partners on board, we crafted “Challenge Statements,” which served as the basis for the competition. Below are a list of the topics we addressed through the New Orleans Health Innovators Challenge during my tenure.
Access To Care Challenge: seeking methods to improve access to preventative and primary care services for uninsured, underinsured, and low-income residents.
Social Determinants Data Challenge: seeking a structured way to pool data about a patient to create customized interventions and establish a risk assessment profile.
Real Time Results Challenge: seeking a patient-centric method to deliver healthcare information in near real-time to patients on the device of their choosing.
Affordable Choices Challenge: seeking an intervention to reduce out-of-pocket costs for existing hospital patient populations.
Diabetes Care Challenge: seeking a tool that will encourage patients with diabetes to stay on top of their health, decrease their stress and improve their diabetes control from the comfort of their own home; the IOT device should also transmit meaningful data to the patient's' care team.
Navigator Challenge: seeking software that can connect patients to information on community resources, additional hospital services, relevant clinical trials, continuity of care, or healthcare coverage.
Interoperability Challenge: seeking a distributed, permissioned, and secured database to share and store data, potentially built on blockchain.
RECRUITMENT + SELECTION
Each organization identified their unique digital health area of need, and I crafted a comprehensive recruitment strategic plan using a variety of databases, SEO strategies, and sales tracking mechanisms. NOLABA had never done a national outreach communication plan, so I crafted a strategy to track target companies and outreach tactics to ensure the right companies found their way to our online application.
I connected with over 343 unique companies and 119 influencers to spread the word about the New Orleans Health Innovators Challenge. Applications over the two years increased by 95% and the application completion rate grew by 74%.
The most rewarding part of the process was selecting the finalists, who were flown to New Orleans for New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. I coached dozens of local healthcare and business leaders to judge the teams to select the final teams. Below are a handful of the finalists.
For a full overview, you can see the Finalist Overview Packets I distributed to community partners here: 2018, 2019. For context, our title sponsors, Blue Cross and Ochsner, selected three finalists to compete at the live Pitch Finale Event, other community partners selected their winners in advance of the event.
NEW ORLEANS PROGRAMMING
Once the finalists were selected, I needed to do my part to sell them on New Orleans. Through careful logistical and operational planning, I crafted a schedule that highlighted the work our Community Partners spearheaded, and took them on a fabulous driving tour of the city between stops. We also took time to go over the statewide R&D and digital software incentives, which dramatically sweeten the deal for businesses based in New Orleans.
NOLA Health Innovators Challenge culminated in a Finale Pitch Event, where the top teams came to New Orleans to present their innovations to an audience of local stakeholders, institutional leadership, entrepreneurs, providers, businesspeople, and more. This was the banner event for the healthcare community as part of New Orleans Entrepreneur Week. At the event, we selected the winning entrepreneurs that would have a chance to form pilot partnerships with their Challenge leads. In addition, the New Orleans Business Alliance awarded winners local wrap-around services to set them up for success, including free coworking space, accelerator spots, and business and software consulting services that we garnered as in-kind donations from more partners that believed in the NOLA Health Innovators Challenge.
In addition to showcasing our winners and finalists, we used the event as an opportunity to uplift local biotech companies, featuring six companies in our showcase. More than 150 people attended our event, and our live stream roped in an additional 643 people. We incorporated real-time feedback, such as audience polling and questions into our event.
Positioning nola for success
Our winners are still developing relationships with their matched health systems.
Alertgy won $36,000 in investment as the winner of the Diabetes Challenge, and went on to win Challenges put on by Mayo and Cleveland clinics. Alertgy has returned to New Orleans for meetings twice since winning NOLAHI, and plans to incorporate the city in its strategic growth plan as the hub for their cloud computing center. Ochsner stands to be the first healthcare system in the country to pilot this groundbreaking technology. Local law firm, Stone Pigman, signed Alertgy as a client.
SimplyVital Health’s CEO Kat Kuzmeskas returned for Cajun Code Fest, where conversation with Lafayette General continued to thrive. Cian Robinson connected SimplyVital Health to other Louisiana-based stakeholders that are interested in the blockchain technology. Lafayette General is set to invest in SimplyVital Health as part of their 2019 Innovation Fund if it correlates to a seed round for SimplyVital Health.
The winner of the Social Determinants Data Challenge, MedAux, has returned to discuss implementation with Ochsner on several occasions. They also signed on as a client with Stone Pigman.
A contract has been proposed between RoundTrip and the University Medical Center. RoundTrip completed a $5.1MM Series A round.
CoHealth is working with Lafayette General to position themselves for investment within their 2019 Innovation Fund.
Each company has engaged more than one local health system for business development purposes. We’ve recorded over 23 in-person meetings directly as a result from this matchmaking initiative.
In addition, we’ve provided a meaningful platform to promote the work of our local healthcare and business leaders. From 2019 alone, my team crafted 229 #NOLAHI tweets, which garnered 406,411 digital impressions, we also designed 45 unique posts across social channels, resulting in 23,768 impressions. Year-round, I infused our NOLAHI Twitter with relevant content from the local ecosystem and beyond. We utilized PR Newswire for over 80 million views, were featured on WWL-TV for several segments, and had write-ups in NOLA.com, Biz New Orleans, Silicon Bayou News, Southern Startup Report, and more.
My BIGGEST TAKEAWAYS:
MORE THE MERRIER: In a time when organizations are competing for resources and fixing on our differences, this program sought to bring everyone to the table for the common goal of innovating our community’s healthcare ecosystem. From the start, even when we did not have one healthcare institution on board, we made it clear that the NOLA Health Innovators Challenge would welcome all hospitals and insurance agencies in our community. The collaborative approach fostered more interesting networking, varied Challenge Statements, and diverse perspectives. In addition, we were able to bring on more community members, for instance, once one coworking space donated space to our prize package, other local partners were eager to be involved as well. Seeing people connect, be inspired, and collaborate exemplified the best parts of uniting in a market that is smaller than some other cities. Our city’s size is not a limiting factor, its a strength, and we benefited from uniting under this Challenge and from creating space at the table for all.
AMPLIFY NOLA’S STRENGTHS: Our Challenge Statements created buzz across the country as we recruited companies. From our combined voices, we drew in many startup leaders who for once saw New Orleans not as a Bourbon Street destination, but as a serious marketplace that prioritized innovation and collaboration. We used this initiative as a way to rebrand and the results worked. For example, Diabetes Challenge winner, Alertgy, is working with Blue Cross and Ochsner, and, in turn, beating Mayo Clinic and Cleveland Clinic to pilot, something previously unheard of in the New Orleans Market.
UNDERSTANDING THE CLIENT: NOLA Health Innovators Challenge was designed with our participants in mind. We focused on the barriers startups face when trying to partner with health systems. On the other side of the equation, we also thought carefully about our healthcare partners, who have limited time and complex pathways to implementation. At every touchpoint, we streamlined and simplified the involvement process. Our healthcare institutions defined their involvement in different ways. Some focused on promoting their leadership teams, others wanted to connect to the NOLA business community. Some prioritized marketing efforts, and others sought relationships with emerging startups. I worked to tailor the program to each entity: supporting their business development goals to garner participation. I constantly sought out feedback to iterate, so my partners remained invested and the program succeeded.
Working on the New Orleans Health Innovators Challenge was a highlight of my time at the New Orleans Business Alliance. I sharpened many skills including programmatic management, stakeholder engagement, sales, web development, event planning, communications, marketing, and database management. I felt humbled by our International Economic Development Council Award.
Ultimately, I am most grateful for all of the people I was able to collaborate with along the journey, and for the privilege of sharing New Orleans with dozens of entrepreneurial leaders who came from around the country to participate in this program.