“I would highly recommend this program to anyone with a good idea and the willingness to work though problems. There is a great deal to be learned that extends far beyond our usual clinical duties and has been a very rewarding experience for me”.
Josh Szental, Specialist Anaesthetist Western Health
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What is the IAP?
The Hospital Innovation Acceleration Program (IAP) is a pre-accelerator enabling healthcare professionals to work with experts from the University of Melbourne to develop innovative solutions to compelling unmet needs.
Inspired by collaboration between Western Health anaesthetist A/Prof Dr Forbes McGain and University of Melbourne engineer Prof Jason Monty on the McMonty Hood personal ventilator for hospital beds, the IAP:
- Provides opportunity to Western Health staff – clinical and non-clinical – who have identified unmet needs within the healthcare system and want to develop innovative solutions supported by expert teams.
- Partners Western Health staff with teams of researchers, business developers, and experts in innovation, entrepreneurship, intellectual property, and venture capital investing from the University of Melbourne.
- Delivers 12 weeks of customized support and five workshops on value proposition design and talking with stakeholders, business model design and testing, intellectual property, pathways to funding, and pitching.
- Supports teams to pitch for funding from $10,000-$100,000 to continue developing their innovations.
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What are benefits of the IAP?
Participants in the IAP are:
- Inspired to become innovator, entrepreneurs, and problem-solvers at scale.
- Equipped with knowledge and experience in established innovation and entrepreneurship best practice.
- Connected with researchers, business developers, and mentors from the University of Melbourne.
- Encouraged to contribute to an inter-organisational culture of collaborative innovation and opportunity creation.
- Guided to identify problems worth solving and repeatable, scalable, impactful business models.
- Supported with seed funding to continue your journey of transforming obstacles into opportunities.
- Enabled to fuel a pipeline of healthcare innovations, intellectual property, and startups in Victoria.
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How does the IAP work?
- Reach out for a consultation with the program leads:
- Bill Karanatsios – Director of Research, Western Health
- Chris Laughlin – Senior Program Coordinator, University of Melbourne
- Apply to the program by May 15th, 2024. We’re here to help.
- You don’t need a solution, just a compelling problem you’re passionate about solving.
- Receive our decision by May 29th.
- Confirm your participation by June 3rd
- Get matched with your University of Melbourne project partners by 26 June.
- Begin the 12-week program in early July (specific dates to be confirmed)
- Kickoff event: Welcoming you to the program
- Workshop 1: Value Proposition Design
- Workshop 2: Business Model Design
- Workshop 3: Intellectual Property
- Workshop 4: Pathways to funding
- Workshop 5: Pitching
- Pitch event: Pitch for a share of $100,000 in seed funding
- Throughout: Work together with your University of Melbourne project partners.
- Post pitch: Continue your innovation journey with support from and access to WH / UoM ecosystem
- Reach out for a consultation with the program leads:
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What projects have gone through the IAP?
Representative Western Health projects to date include:
- McMonty Hood – personal ventilation hood for hospital beds
- ReResp – resusable respirator with enhanced speech intelligibility
- Blood Loss Monitor – rapid and accurate determination of blood loss in surgery
- Chemotherapy dosing – precision-tailored dosage for colorectal cancers
- Post-heart-attack care – enhanced post-discharge care for heart attack survivors
- Post-ICU care – improved post-discharge care for ICU survivors
- Health information – customised health-information for CALD communities
