The Center for Innovation at Regional One Health focuses on applying disruptive thinking to health care to create new ways to provide care. Its latest enterprise is a partnership with Welwaze and its innovative breast health monitoring system designed to detect early signs of breast disease.
“We are really excited to be working with Welwaze on its journey to save lives with its groundbreaking technology,” said Alejandra Alvarez, director for the Center for Innovation at Regional One Health. “Our partnership makes it possible for us to offer the latest medical advances in breast disease detection to our patients at Regional One Health.”
According to the Center for Disease Control, breast cancer is the most common cancer among women worldwide. Every minute a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer and every eight minutes a woman dies because of this disease. Alex Ness, founder and CEO for Welwaze, says his company is entirely focused on reducing that number of deaths through early detection of this disease using Celbrea’s ecosystem and raising women’s awareness to maintain a healthy lifestyle and keeping their annual checkups.
Celbrea is an FDA cleared single-use disposable pad that monitors the surface temperature of the breast as a biothermal activity marker for early signs of breast disease. It provides results in just 15 minutes. Early intervention can save lives, so the goal Ness says is to alert women if there is a possibility of breast disease to encourage them to take action early and make an appointment to see their physician. Doctors in oncology and imaging at Regional One Health will use this breakthrough breast health monitoring technology with their patients.
“We want to encourage women to seek medical attention as early as possible so they have the best chance to survive,” said Ness. “Our innovative technology helps women easily learn if there is any sign of breast disease so if the results show breast disease, they know how important it is to make an appointment with their physician.”
Ness says the collaboration with the Center for Innovation at Regional One Health is extremely important. “We have the opportunity to work directly with doctors and patients which allows us to gather vital data that will validate the effectiveness of Celbrea and allow us to properly communicate these results to the medical community.”
The Innovation Center at Regional One Health seeks to build a health care ecosystem of innovators and entrepreneurs by providing a platform that inspires, aligns, and cultivate new ideas, research and technology. The Center focuses on three areas to help disrupt the health care industry:
- Building - Testing the viability, desirability and feasibility of promising ideas through the Innovation Lab.
- Partnering - Creating high-performing partnerships with experts in a variety of fields through the Healthcare Ecosystem Collaborative.
- Amplifying - Helping companies validate their business model or clinical use case through the Healthcare Startup Incubator.
“At the Center for Innovation we focus on empowering health care innovators to drive innovation that will improve patient experiences and outcomes locally, nationally, and globally.” said Alvarez. “One of the most exciting opportunities we have is to provide our patients first-hand access to state-of-the-art technology leading to directly improving the health of our community.”
In addition to impacting the local health community, Ness says his product will be able to support current challenges women face regarding access to doctors, screening centers or women who simply need to monitor themselves more often because of their breast density or genetic profile. Where mammograms are available, Ness says this new technology will increase women’s compliance when it comes to keeping up their recommended mammography schedule. If the results are positive, it will also provide a wakeup call for women to be more diligent and motivate them to go see their doctor.
To be selected as a partner with the Center for Innovation, businesses must complete an in-depth discovery process that allows Regional One Health to learn the potential partner’s needs and ensure their goals align with Regional One Health’s goals. Regional One Health also examines its processes to determine whether the health system has the right processes in place to ensure the ability to successfully handle the scope of the project. A committee then reviews and score the results, evaluating Regional One Health’s capacity to provide the needed services and the viability to execute the project.