← News Home

Community Health Network launches unique bold focus on innovation

For release on November 01, 2012

Indianapolis, IN---Community Health Network announced an aggressive plan to foster innovation among its employees and external partners with the unveiling of Community Launchpad, an innovation incubator designed to develop healthcare advancements, improve healthcare delivery, and seed entrepreneurial opportunities to reinvest in future innovations.

Community Launchpad will invest in the most promising services, products and technologies that solve needs for patients, while creating a culture of entrepreneurship among its physicians, nurses, clinical and administrative staff.

“We studied conventional centers of innovation across the country, both in and out of the healthcare industry,” said Kyle Fisher, chief strategic development officer for Community Health Network. “In the end, we developed our own two-way incubation portal connecting the talent of our employees with the expertise of outside collaborators.This effort will improve services for our patients, while further distinguishing Community as an even more attractive place for healthcare entrepreneurs to partner with and succeed.”

Key principles for guiding the innovative activity of Community Launchpad include:

  • Core business: a structured process for stakeholders to explore the feasibility of big, bold ideas aimed at improving patient experiences and outcomes
  • Alliances: a two-way innovation portal to catalyze value-added partnerships with outside industry, such as universities, corporate America, small entrepreneurs, vendors and consumers
  • Intellectual property: a platform to protect and commercialize intellectual capital
  • Ventures: an investment in promising healthcare solutions yielding attractive returns to reinvest in future innovations

"Community Launchpad goes beyond a traditional R&D lab or healthcare venture capital fund,” said Pete Turner, vice president of innovation for Community Health Network and leader of Community Launchpad. “We’ve created the engine to advance our core business by thinking boldly, harvesting promising ideas that improve the delivery and quality of care, and moving quickly to bring our solutions to market."

Community Launchpad is a division of Visionary Enterprises, Inc. (VEI), the wholly-owned, for-profit subsidiary of Community Health Network. Community Launchpad management will receive strategic guidance and direction from the VEI Board of Directors and an innovation advisory board, bringing deep physician, healthcare and corporate experience.

For more information on Community Launchpad, visit eCommunity.com/Launchpad.

About Community Launchpad
Community Launchpad is the innovation incubator of Community Health Network. Designed as an entrepreneurial epicenter, Community Launchpad fosters a creative work environment for Community Health Network employees, as well as external collaborators such as universities, corporate America and entrepreneurs, to improve the delivery of healthcare for patients. The goal is to develop breakthrough healthcare products and services that will be utilized at Community Health Network and commercialized throughout the healthcare industry. For more information about Community Launchpad, visit eCommunity.com/Launchpad.

About Community Health Network
Ranked among the nation’s most integrated healthcare systems, Community Health Network is Central Indiana’s leader in providing convenient access to exceptional healthcare services, where and when patients need them—in hospitals, health pavilions and doctor’s offices, as well as workplaces, schools and homes. As a non-profit health system with over 200 sites of care and affiliates throughout Central Indiana, Community’s full continuum of care integrates hundreds of physicians, specialty and acute care hospitals, surgery centers, home care services, MedChecks, behavioral health and employer health services. To learn more, visit eCommunity.com or call 800-777-7775.

--30--

Lynda de Widt, Media Relations
Lynda de Widt
Media Relations