Hospital, utilizing $15M venture capital fund, seeks more startups to support

By Mark Gordon

November 2, 2022

The innovation side of health care isn’t an afterthought at one of the biggest hospital systems in the region. A leader there aims to make it a first thought.

Like doctors and nurses searching for a cure to a rare disease, Rachel Feinman, who works in health care technology, isn’t shy about going outside her bubble to improve her chances for success. “I’m really passionate about making meaningful connections that create change,” Feinman says.

The opportunities to do that are far and wide at TGH Innoventures, the technology and innovation arm of Tampa General Hospital, where Feinman is the managing director. Feinman has made those connections at medical centers from New York to Michigan, all with the north star of finding more ways to deliver health care more efficiently, with better outcomes, at TGH. The community-based hospital, with operating revenue of $1.84 billion in 2021, some 8,000 employees and 1,040 beds, is one of the largest medical centers on the west coast of Florida. “Connecting dots is a huge part of my role here,” says Feinman, also a vice president of innovation at TGH.

As TGH Innoventures readies itself for its third year, its mission to use innovative technologies to make things at TGH run better and smoother, while increasing access and decreasing costs, is ever-more urgent. That’s because industry consolidation, shrinking federal reimbursement rates, labor shortages and a host of other challenges have all teamed up to squeeze hospitals. TGH President and CEO John Couris, who joined TGH in 2017 and has since been lauded nationally for embracing technology and innovation in health care, recognizes that. “TGH InnoVentures is a critical ingredient in our strategic vision to become the safest and most innovative academic health system in America," Couris said in a November 2020 statement.

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