North Shore-Long Island Jewish Health System, a growing New York system that recently launched its own insurance company, will invest in an outside technology startup under a new strategy to vet promising entrepreneurs.
The Great Neck, N.Y.-based system announced a letter of intent to form a joint venture with Newport Health Solutions. The newly created company will market information technology that helps healthcare organizations manage provider networks and patient referrals. North Shore-LIJ will adopt the technology at its hospitals after a one-year test at the system's Lenox Hill Hospital.
The joint venture will be the first with an outside company under North Shore-LIJ's 18-month-old initiative to develop, test and invest in new consumer-engagement technology, said Tom Thornton, senior vice president of North Shore Ventures, the company's venture arm. The company has made one prior investment with an internally developed mobile application for discharges, which the system likewise piloted at its hospitals.
Gaining access to health systems is challenging for “emerging, relatively immature, early-stage companies,” Thornton said. “Yet large health systems are scouting for innovation.”
North Shore-LIJ hopes to test emerging projects and will potentially adopt and invest in those that work, he said. The system is approaching technology incubators, startups and challenging its own employees to develop new technology.
Other health systems, including Ascension, Dignity Health, Catholic Health Initiatives and Trinity Health have made venture capital investments with the goal of identifying promising healthcare companies.
Terms of the North Shore -LIJ joint venture with Newport Health Solutions for Newport's technology Health Connect were not disclosed.
Sophia Teng, CEO of Newport Health Solutions, did not respond to interview requests at deadline.
