Announcing: Subsidized Rapid Response Open Calls

In collaboration with The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Catalyst @ Health 2.0 is proud to announce funding for health care providers with limited resources and urgent needs to identify and source digital health innovation during COVID-19 through our Rapid Response Open Calls (RROC). RROCs are streamlined calls for applications that connect health care providers to digital health solutions. Deployed as part of Catalyst’s Health Tech Responds to COVID-19 platform, RROCs can be launched within days to meet the host’s needs.

Catalyst created the RROC to address an urgent need from Brigham and Women’s Hospital (BWH) Emergency Department for provider-facing, text based platforms to help healthcare professionals self-monitor symptoms of coronavirus, report burnout, and access helpful resources. Within one day, the Brigham and Women’s Health RROC was launched. In a 7-day application period, Catalyst received an overwhelmingly positive response with more than 80 quality submissions. BWH was able to evaluate the submissions through a streamlined process and 5 innovators were selected to demo their solutions to the BWH ED team. BWH began pursuing a potential partnership with one of the semi-finalists. 

If you are a healthcare provider with limited resources during COVID-19 (e.g. FQHCs, community health centers, etc.), apply for a subsidized RROC HERE! 

Indu Subaiya’s Vision for the Future of Health Care

Indu Subaiya, co-founder of Catalyst and Health 2.0, discussed her journey to becoming the visionary health care leader she is today with Maya De La Rosa Cohen, a contributor for Capsule’s “Dear Doctor” series.

Indu began her career at a biotech and life sciences consulting firm, where she combined her clinical background with her burgeoning interest in the adaptation of new technologies. After receiving her MBA from UC Berkeley, she worked to start her own health technology company. In 2006, her dream blossomed into Health 2.0, which she established with co-founder Matthew Holt. Health 2.0 has grown into a global movement of over 100,000 entrepreneurs, developers, and health care stakeholders, who come together for innovative conferences across the world. Through her engagement with the conference attendees and speakers, Indu recognized the dire need for open data that allows entrepreneurs to access the resources necessary to improve the health economy. Hence, Indu began Catalyst @ Health 2.0 or “Catalyst,” an industry leader that powers the health innovation ecosystem through digital health strategic partnering. Since its beginning in 2010, Catalyst has hosted 90+ innovation challenges with $9mm in awards, coordinated over 175 pilot programs to test new tech, and created connections for more than 1,500 firms via matchmaking events. 

Indu believes the future of digital health lies in transformation of the traditional health care delivery systems. For example, Virta, a diabetes management company, began as a remote monitoring platform. However, it has now developed into a fully functional health care delivery system that fuses technology with service. As digital tools and technology advance in the health care space, Indu predicts that the traditional model of health care will face massive threats and will need to reinvent its services to keep up with the speed at which innovations are happening.

To hear more about Indu’s thoughts on the future of health care and digital innovation, click here.