One Atlanta-based healthcare giant is staking its claim in the city’s entrepreneurial scene.
Wellstar Health Systems announced it will join Engage’s growing list of corporate partners.
As a hybrid innovation and corporate venture platform, Engage is designed to connect enterprise startups with corporate sponsors and academic research to propel further innovation.
Wellstar is the first healthcare-focused company to join Engage’s corporate venture platform. Earlier this year, Inspire Brands (which includes restaurant brands Arby’s, Dunkin’, and Baskin Robbins, to name a few) joined other corporate sponsors like Delta, Chick-fil-A, The Home Depot, and UPS.
The announcement comes as Wellstar introduced Catalyst by Wellstar, a global digital health and innovation center.
The Wellstar team told Hypepotamus that Catalyst is dedicated to driving sustainability and equity across the healthcare space. “The aim is to leverage digital technologies to solve for challenges and opportunities related to access to care and care delivery in audience-relevant ways, while consciously solving for differences in technology access, which can be a social determinant of health.”
“We will also focus on sourcing solutions that drive down the cost of care through automation, encompassing enhanced access to care, as well as well-being and illness prevention for every age and stage of life across the consumer health journey,” Dr. Hank Capps, EVP and CIDO for Wellstar, told Hypepotamus.
The new partnership with Engage could help spark new HealthTech and MedTech growth in the Atlanta area and beyond. Wellstar’s current network is one of the largest in Georgia and includes 11 hospitals, over 300 medical offices, 9 cancer centers, and 74 rehabilitation centers.
“With the investment in Engage, we plan on sourcing ideas and solutions from other industries to leapfrog current generational technologies and maximize impacts on patients and community. Particular areas of interest within the Engage portfolio include consumer experience, future of work, and big data and analytics. Being a corporate member also creates opportunities for deep cross-corporate collaboration to design the future of healthcare.”
For Engage, the partnership is about understanding where healthcare trends are moving. “As a regional and national healthcare leader, Wellstar brings a critical industry perspective to the Engage platform,” said Daley Ervin, managing director of Engage, in a statement. “Our corporate partners are facing challenges posed by large-scale digital transformation and rapidly evolving customer expectations. Through this partnership, Wellstar will benefit from the expertise of a broad network of industry-leading companies while also leveraging the startup and university research ecosystem on their journey to design the future of healthcare.”
Get news like this delivered directly to your inbox by signing up for the Hypepotamus newsletter!
