The Veterans Health Administration (VHA) established VA Ventures to bring the newest technology into their hospitals. VA Ventures has the advantage of existing within one of the world’s largest healthcare systems, presenting tremendous access to patients, clinicians, scientists, and engineers across multiple specialties and disciplines. The size of VHA’s clinical services lines provides a level of access to care providers and patients that is not always available to industry. VA Ventures acknowledges and values the depth of experience that industry contributes to healthcare and recognizes the synergistic benefits of collaboration on the potential to accelerate and enrich new and existing projects. We have forged collaborations with industry, academia and government to advance pre-product discovery and research, as well as engage in product development and iteration. Our presentation will include a review of the history and outcomes of current partnerships, as well as future directions and opportunities.
Current examples of active collaborations include:
- Developing regulatory science tools with the Food and Drug Administration
- Several medical device projects with 3D Systems
- Biofabrication with Advanced Solutions Life Sciences
- Cooperative R&D agreement to evaluate portable x-ray technology
- Building regulated product development infrastructure with the Department of Defense
- Novel nasal swab evaluation with a healthcare system
- Powered Air Purifying Respirator system jointly developed with a university and a private practice physician
Future thrusts include:
- Building a fully functional Operating Room to test and develop medical devices/environment/facility, as well as train clinicians
- Partnerships to refine/co-develop medical devices to maximize Veteran benefit and device usefulness
- Research collaborations for pre-product development, clinical study/trials, and post-market impact
- Discovery activities for technologies and processes that can translate to clinical care products
- Crisis preparedness projects, products, and planning
Learning Objectives:
- List the partnerships that VA Ventures has developed, and is looking to develop in the future
- Describe the ways in which those partnerships have advanced healthcare at VA
- Explain how developing similar partnerships could benefit patients and clinicians, as well as industry, government, and the healthcare sector in general
