More money moving in to the heartland! – November 18, 2019
"Growth is never by mere chance; it is the result of forces working together.” James Cash Penney
Today’s itinerary:
November 18, 2019
HEALTH CARE EXPANSION
Innovating to improve patient care I Big healthcare systems are not typically known for being nimble in the pursuit of innovative solutions to support patients and providers. But that doesn’t mean it can’t be done—particularly for smaller systems that are focused on doing just that.
Three hospitals in the Midwest are making strides in improving patient care by taking creative approaches to building an innovative culture.
Grand Rapids, MI-based Mercy Health Innovation Hub is a good example. It’s located in the Grand Rapids Innovation and Design building (Grid70), which “nourishes innovation, ideation and cross-pollination”—exactly what the hub wants as it conducts research projects and engages patients in providing insights into its health care system.
Detroit’s Henry Ford Health System has a different take on its innovation journey, with a focus on incubating and commercializing its ideas. Its stated mission is to “engineer the future of healthcare by providing physicians and staff with world-class resources to turn great ideas into transformative products.”
Meanwhile, in Peoria, IL, a third healthcare system has launched OSF Innovation, which defines its innovation focus as advancing simulation, doing more for those with less, providing radical access to care, and supporting ways to enable aging in place.
Cinci Medical Center set for $221M expansion Construction will soon begin on a $221 million expansion at the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, the largest such development project in the hospital's 200-year history.
UC health president and CEO Dr. Richard Lofgren said the plans include doubling the size and capacity of the hospital's existing emergency room facilities, adding three floors of ICU and new patient rooms, replacing an aging structure with two new parking garages, and building a three-story state-of-the-art surgery center.
This latest expansion project follows previously announced upgrades to outdoor lighting throughout the medical campus and improvements to the hospital lobby. The UC Medical Center isn't the only facility undergoing rapid expansion and development in the neighborhood. The Uptown area is already seeing hundreds of millions of dollars being invested to develop and transform the burgeoning Innovation Corridor.
Hospital officials point to the tri-state area's growing need for advanced 21st-century care in their own backyard. “These investments are going to increase the quality of care and life when lives are on the line,” Lofgren said. “We really need to make sure that we have the facilities to accommodate what we do for this community.”
MORE SOARING INVESTMENTS
Indiana makes 'big tech' an offer it can't refuse 
There’s a bidding war going on for big-tech data centers among Midwestern states, and Indiana just upped the ante in a big way: The state is offering to eliminate sales taxes for a whopping 50 years to any company that spends at least $750 million to build a data center in the Hoosier state.
Durham's BioCryst inks deal in Japan for $42 million Here’s a cool market niche: developing medicines for rare diseases that are largely going untreated. That’s the mission of BioCryst, a Durham, NC, pharmaceutical company. Treatments for rare diseases are tough for pharma companies to tackle, since the market is naturally limited precisely because of the rarity of the diseases.
Minnesota's Total Expert raises $50 million 
A mar-tech company based in suburban Minneapolis has landed $52 million in venture capital funding, a tidy sum for a startup outside the field of healthcare. The company, Total Expert, specializes in marketing software for mortgage firms. The venture capital funding is the largest round of funding in Minnesota in recent years.
IN FLIGHT ENTERTAINMENT
It's ... Name that Fast Future city!
Useless information that is strangely fascinating.
Today, we’re going to give you three groups of unrelated people who happen to have been born in the same city. Can you name the city each group was born in?
Click here for today's answers
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