The American Medical Association (AMA) and Sling Health (formerly IDEA Labs), a student-run biotechnology incubator is expanding their joint efforts to allow the voice and experience of physicians to inspire technologies that resolve unmet needs in health care delivery and clinical medicine. Together, the two organizations have launched the Clinical Problem Database designed to compile insights from physicians on needed improvements to clinical efficiency and patient care. These real-world experiences are shared with Sling Health’s network of young entrepreneurs to foster cutting-edge medical technology development with attention to the clinical challenges faced by physicians.
Overlooking Physicians Requirements
Too often, physicians are treated as an afterthought during technology development. Overlooking physician requirements is one reason medical technology may not live up to its promise. An AMA study demonstrates that nearly half a physician’s office day is filled by clerical tasks performed on cumbersome technology. This burden has left physicians feeling they are neglecting their patients as they try to keep up with an overload of type-and-click tasks.
The Importance of Physician Feedback
Recognizing the importance of physician feedback for healthcare entrepreneurs to improve solutions, the Clinical Problem Database will be an added feature on the AMA’s Physician Innovation Network (PIN), an online community that connects and matches physicians with digital health companies and entrepreneurs. Through the use of the PIN platform, the voice, experience and needs of physicians can be heard and incorporated into new products as they are developed.
Physician Innovation Network
Since PIN was launched in 2017, more than 3,000 physicians and medical students, as well as roughly 1,800 entrepreneurs, have participated in the online network and there are already stories of successful physician-entrepreneur connections. Physicians matched with entrepreneurs through PIN have consulted in a range of areas, such as improving operating-room workflow, assisting to eliminate the guesswork for spinal punctures, piloting emerging solutions and identifying developers to co-develop solutions for pressing needs.
“Physicians and entrepreneurs are passionate about transforming health care, and by engaging collaboratively they can advance innovation that makes the health system work better for everyone,” said Michael A. Tutty, Ph.D., M.H.A., group vice president of professional satisfaction and practice sustainability at the AMA. “Through our collaboration with Sling Health, the AMA is helping physicians and medical students take on a greater role in driving technology forward that responds to real clinical needs. Gaining insights from physicians will help make medical technology an asset, not a burden.”
