The challenge was simple. There is a need and desire for the digital transformation of healthcare. However, progress is being held up by adoption difficulties too large for one organisation to solve alone.
The solution to driving impactful innovation and adoption at scale is collaborating across silos with the key stakeholders in the healthcare value chain (start-ups, clinicians, healthcare providers etc...).
Like many organisations, GE HealthCare (GEHC) has a network and understanding of clinicians and healthcare providers (HCPs), but lacked access to and the best practices of engaging with the venture market to unlock its opportunity.
Enter Wayra UK.
Our goal through the Edison™ Accelerator was to find the right start-ups for the problem statements and then help them to validate and deploy their solutions with HCPs facilitated through the Edison™ Platform.
350+
applications to the programme
15
start-ups shortlisted
6
start-ups selected & onboarded
5
start-ups finished
the programme
4
start-ups commercial onboarding
with GE Healthcare
Throughout the programme, we engaged all the key stakeholders in the healthcare ecosystem. This ‘collaborative ecosystem’ facilitated the necessary cross-industry collaboration required to tackle the key challenges in healthcare.
A key component to successful innovation is starting from a validated and clearly defined challenge.
That’s why our collaboration with GEHC began by understanding exactly what problems the organisation and its healthcare providers were facing, as well as which could be solved through the venture market.
With clear problem statements, we reached out to venture capital funds (VCs), experts in the medical space and our global network to identify potential solutions, generating a funnel of around 1000 start-ups.
To refine the funnel and select the right companies to work with, there is a two-stage process which evaluates both the short and long-term opportunities:
Stage 1 – Best fit with the problem statement
The initial 1000 companies are condensed to 200 by the track leaders based on their product and commercial viability for the problem statement.
Stage 2 - Assessment day with key stakeholders
The 200 companies are put forward to the assessment day and evaluated by key decision-makers from GEHC and the HCPs.
They are scored based on the following:
Finding start-up solutions that are a perfect fit for the problem statement is only part of the journey.
Another key component is making sure they are ready to work at scale with a corporate. We prepare them for this by taking them through a series of workshops and masterclasses with experts across the necessary disciplines.
Having a solution is great but how it works in practice determines whether it’s a viable long-term solution.
The goal is to validate the value proposition, the technology, and the organisational fit.
Our role in this whole process is to work with both sides to help integrate the teams because it’s no surprise that corporates and start-ups operate differently and managing the two whilst they work together is key.
Finding a solution that works is great, but it’s the beginning, rather than the end. There’s no impact if nothing goes beyond the pilot.
That’s why we support in the handover process to set up scaling infrastructure for success.
In our first year of working with GEHC, of the 6 companies that joined, 4 are being commercially onboarded with GEHC.
You can find out more about the 2021 programme’s results here.
We ensure all key internal and external stakeholders understand and are aligned with the problems being tackled, how and the business impact generated through the collaboration. This is essential to building the buy-in often missing in innovation projects but essential to their longevity and scalability.
In summary, our innovation method enabled GEHC to access digital solutions in the venture market that it could integrate into its Edison™ platform.
The start-ups got a quicker route to adoption through exposure to HCPs and product validation and development through direct customer feedback.
That is how we unlock business opportunities for corporates and start-ups pushing them further, faster, together.
If you’d like to learn more, get in touch.
