CIMIT, Induct announce strategic alliance to implement Web-based innovation management system

The Center for Integration of Medicine and Innovative Technology (CIMIT®) and Induct Software™ AS (Induct), "The Open Innovation Company™," today announced a long-term strategic alliance under which they will work together to implement a Web-based innovation management system based upon the successful CIMIT Model. The collaboration will draw on the strengths of each organization to develop Web-based tools that support the accelerated implementation of leading-edge ideas, clinical systems and medical devices through multidisciplinary teams of innovators.

CIMIT, a non-profit consortium of Boston's premier teaching hospitals and universities, is entering into this alliance to advance its mission in a scalable way by leveraging the Induct technology platform. CIMIT fosters interdisciplinary collaboration among world-class experts in medicine, science, engineering and clinical systems, in concert with industry and government, to rapidly improve patient care. CIMIT stimulates and facilitates early-stage translational research by collaborations of engineers and clinicians to catalyze the discovery, development, and implementation of innovative technologies.

The goal of the CIMIT/Induct alliance is to implement elements of the CIMIT Model within the Induct platform. The initial focus will be to enhance the convening potential of the CIMIT community and to help other groups collaborate in a similar way to improve patient care. Seamlessly integrated into the Induct framework, the new CIMIT functionality will help other like-minded healthcare communities and organizations to adopt the CIMIT Model and to embrace CIMIT's collaborative approach to innovation. The alliance enables Induct to integrate additional CIMIT methods, tools and services that support the creation, sharing, and implementation of innovative operational ideas within and across organizations in healthcare and other industries.

"CIMIT has developed a proven and successful Model for initiating and accelerating translational medical research in the domain of devices, procedures, and clinical systems," said CIMIT chief executive John A. Parrish, MD. He went on to say, "Our community is large and distributed over many different institutions. New collaboration tools and platforms will virtually unite the physician-scientists and engineers of our member institutions and support innovation. In addition to our traditional emphasis on product and technology innovation, we are focused on transforming the healthcare delivery system to improve the quality of and access to care, along with a step change in cost effectiveness. Implementing the CIMIT Model through Induct's Web-based platform will allow us to facilitate these efforts by offering an increased level of healthcare innovation."

"Induct has been working on end-to-end open innovation initiatives in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and the UK that help providers deliver better quality healthcare in a more cost efficient manner," said David M. Burns, CEO of Induct Software AS. "As we started to explore opportunities in the U.S., we heard from several key consultants and hospital leaders that CIMIT had the most real-world experience in collaborative healthcare innovation. Based on input from CIMIT, we are adding new and exciting functionality to Induct that will help CIMIT and others to operate more efficiently. By incorporating the CIMIT philosophy into the Induct platform, we will be capturing CIMIT's best practices and making them available in a Web-based open innovation management system for companies and organizations in healthcare and other important industry sectors."