What You Should Know:
– Houston Methodist joins the Ion as its first healthcare-centric partner in its growing innovation hub.
– The hospital will build out a space at the Ion modeled after Houston Methodist’s Center for Innovation Technology Hub located at its flagship hospital in the Texas Medical Center to showcase the latest in healthcare innovation.
Opening a New Window Into the Future of Healthcare
The Ion anchors a 16-acre innovation district, the epicenter for Houston’s
innovation ecosystem, as an inclusive, dynamic, vibrant, and dense hub focusing on quality collaborations between entrepreneurs, incubators, accelerators, corporations, academics, and the Houston community. The 266,000-square-foot building accommodates multiple uses, including class-A office space, shared workspace, prototyping and maker resources, event space, classrooms, food and beverage offerings, as well as indoor/outdoor communal areas with shared amenities.
Expected to open later this year, the Tech Hub at the Ion will occupy an approximately 1,200-square-foot space which will first be used for informational and educational programming, networking with fellow tenants and entrepreneurs, participating in on-site mentoring and pitch competitions, and hosting open houses for the community to see how Houston Methodist is shaping patient-centered healthcare of the future.
Houston Methodist’s presence at the Ion advances its vision to foster more collaboration across industries, joining aerospace, energy, and oil and gas companies already embedded in the innovation hub. Through this partnership, Houston Methodist expands the work of its Center for Innovation and its Technology Hub, which opened in early 2020 to provide a living laboratory environment to experience the latest innovations in patient-centered healthcare technology, including remote monitoring, ambient intelligence and virtual reality. The space at the Ion will be a smaller replica, a twin of the original space within the hospital, and will demonstrate how current and future technology work together in the hospital setting. Partnering with Houston Methodist and welcoming them to the Ion, developed by Rice Management Company on behalf of Rice University, builds on the legacies of two of the state’s leading institutions, said Rice University President Reggie DesRoches.
Houston Methodist and Rice University have a history of collaborations including the Houston Methodist – Rice University Center for Human Performance, a premier center under construction on Rice’s main campus. The space is intended to bring physicians, academic researchers and university students together to work side by side with student athletes, trainers and coaches to advance research and education in human performance. Houston Methodist and Rice University also are collaborating on the Center for Translational Neural Prosthetics and Interfaces, to bring together scientists, clinicians, engineers and surgeons to solve clinical problems with neurorobotics.
“We are advancing the evolution of the hospital’s role in healthcare through digital transformation,” said Michelle Stansbury, VP of Innovation and IT Applications at Houston Methodist. “Having a footprint at the Ion will not only provide the Ion’s network and Houston community with a window into what we are doing for patients, consumers and providers, but also gives the Ion community and rising innovators an opportunity to bring its own ingenuity and ideas to life with ours.”
