St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center, Welch Allyn provide $35,000 to students with Healthy IDEAs

The rising cost of health care has been a near-constant news topic for the past several years. The recent recession, in which more people are unemployed and without health coverage, and aging Baby Boomers are just two pieces of the growing burden on the healthcare system in the United States. Finding solutions to the healthcare challenges will require technology, public policy and a healthy dose of innovation.

So, what better place to look for innovation and creative thinking than the college students in our own community?  St. Joseph’s Hospital Health Center and Welch Allyn agree.

The 2013 Raymond von Dran IDEA Awards competition will have a new track for student ventures, Healthy IDEAs, sponsored by St. Joseph’s and Welch Allyn. The RvD IDEA Awards is the largest college student venture competition in New York State. There will be $35,000 in funding available for innovative and entrepreneurial ideas and ventures in the Healthy IDEAs category. The top two teams in this track will move on to the New York State Business Plan Competition in Albany, as the St. Joseph’s and Welch Allyn winners, to compete for additional seed funding.

“Our community is blessed to have top-notch higher education institutions, where students are encouraged to innovate and develop new ideas,” says Kathryn Ruscitto, president and chief executive officer of St. Joseph’s. “We are proud to support Healthy IDEAs by supporting the health track portion of its competition.”

“Welch Allyn is delighted to serve as co-sponsor of the Raymond von Dran IDEA Awards competition,” says Welch Allyn president and CEO Steve Meyer. “The innovation and entrepreneurship focus of the award is something we can relate to at Welch Allyn. In the entrepreneurial spirit of our founders, we focus on finding new and innovative ways to solve our customers’ problems by improving existing products, while also bringing new technology to the market place—the very premise of the award. Much like us, this competition strives to inspire and accelerate innovation right here in Central New York.”

Examples of important issues in healthcare include preventing hospital readmission once a patient is discharged, how to use the significant amount of patient data collected for better treatment intervention and disease prevention, and how to use technology to create real-time alerts that are meaningful in a busy, stressful environment.

To learn more about IDEA, visit the IDEA website, the RvD IDEA Awards website, or contact Stacey Keefe at sekeefe@syr.edu.