RWJBarnabas Health is joining the Healthcare Innovation Engine at SciTech Scity as the Hospital Innovation Lead Partner, the system and Liberty Science Center announced Thursday.
RWJBarnabas Health joins Bristol Myers Squibb, EY, Nokia Bell Labs, Sheba Medical Center in Israel and others as SciTech Scity partners. The group aims to help SciTech Scity become a comprehensive multidisciplinary effort to advance the use of new digital technologies to pioneer and spearhead new and more cost-effective methods of delivering care for underserved communities in New Jersey and beyond. It also wants to elevate startups working on some of the biggest challenges in health care.
Michael Prilutsky, the CEO of Jersey City Medical Center, said RWJBH is eager to help create new pathways to advance health equity.
“Our collaboration as a premier academic health system will help facilitate scientific advancement while supporting our mission of improving the health status of our communities,” he said.
SciTech Scity, the “Science City of Tomorrow” being developed by Liberty Science Center in Jersey City, will be a 30-acre innovation campus devoted to using science and technology to address humanity’s greatest challenges, from inadequate health care to climate change.
This work will be done in conjunction with startup companies, community and health organizations, hospitals, universities and other partners, in order to test and validate specific products and solutions, as well as to conduct joint research efforts with the SciTech Scity academic ecosystem to collect the data needed to support broader adoption. The expansive university partner network includes Fairleigh Dickinson University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, New York University, Princeton University, Rowan University and Stevens Institute of Technology.
LSC CEO Paul Hoffman said RWJBarnabas Health is the perfect partner for this visionary endeavor, given the close proximity of Jersey City Medical Center, one of its 12 hospitals, to Liberty Science Center and SciTech Scity, and given its “unmatched leadership position in the state as the largest and most comprehensive academic health system.”
As the Hospital Innovation Lead Partner, RWJBarnabas Health will take an active role in the health care Innovation program design and delivery, contributing clinical expertise, products and resources towards the community pilots and health equity initiatives. RWJBarnabas Health will also further accelerate its innovation leadership by working closely with startups, researchers and other innovators in the SciTech Scity Healthcare Innovation Engine and beyond.
Over the last five years, RWJBarnabas Health has made $300 million in investments in modern infrastructure and equipment, and further solidified its position in the region, serving over 3 million patients per year, including more than 50% of all the underserved in the state (charity care and Medicaid). It is one of the largest academic medical groups in the country, with 9,000 providers, integrated with RWJMS, Rutgers Health and Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey, with the largest academic and research infrastructure and National Institutes of Health funding in New Jersey.
Hudson County, where both LSC and Jersey City Medical Center are located, will be one of the primary testing grounds for SciTech Scity’s digital health pilot initiatives. It is the most densely populated county in the most densely populated state, and one of the most diverse in the entire U.S., with over 40% of residents being foreign-born population, and 40 different first languages being spoken. Its inland communities are also some of the most economically disadvantaged, ranking particularly high on measures of health vulnerability, making them an ideal testing ground to address systemic challenges in the health care system.
