November 2020
Expressing Gratitude and Thanks to Our Community
Hey Innovator!

Without a doubt, COVID-19 has kept our team and many others at Brigham and Women’s Hospital busy in the past few months. As Thanksgiving is just right around the corner, we want to express our gratitude and thanks for all those working in healthcare. Thank you for all that you do.

At the iHub, we are proud to highlight some of the work our nimble team has been able to accomplish during these times, plus highlight some of the ground-breaking digital health projects from our innovators.
Leading technology efforts for our Safe Care Commitment
By now, if you come onsite to work, attesting through COVID Pass should be second nature. But did you know the development of this web-based application, along with Brigham at Its Best and Prescreen have been led by the iHub team? Learn how we partnered with our colleagues from Mass General Brigham software development to create and deploy these digital solutions in this month’s Brigham Clinical and Research News.
Conferences and networking during the pandemic
While COVID-19 has halted all travels, industry conferences such as HLTH are still taking place, albeit in a virtual format. Rather than trekking all the way to Vegas this year, the team logged in to attend sessions and roundtables from the comfort of our living rooms. Read about highlights and key takeaways in our latest blog post.
iHub Services & Resources
iHub helps Brigham Health innovators propel their digital health ideas and concepts forward. We offer a range of services including our Open Innovation Studio, Digital Health Innovation Guide, and Sandbox program.
Have an idea and need some guidance?
If you are a Brigham Health innovator with an early-stage digital health idea, sign up to meet our staff virtually on Wednesday afternoons via the Open Innovation Studio.

A core service of the iHub is supporting, guiding, incubating early-stage ideas and concepts generated by our world-class faculty and staff. The Open Innovation Studio offers virtual consultation sessions to review and discuss your ideas. 
Ready to pilot?
If you are a Brigham innovator looking to conduct a digital health pilot, learn more about our DHIG process and how it can help you get started in an efficient and compliant way.

Our Digital Health Innovation Guide (DHIG) offers innovators efficient digital technology assistance tailored to individual project needs and helps ensure compliance with our hospital and system’s processes. 
Funding Opportunity: Mass. Digital Health Sandbox Program
Administered by the Massachusetts eHealth Institute at the MassTech Collaborative, the Digital Health Sandbox Program allows Massachusetts-based startups the opportunity to apply for funding to work with the iHub and Brigham and Women’s hospital. BWH staff interested in partnering with a Massachusetts based startup to research, develop, or pilot a new technology should reach out to iHub@partners.org to learn more. 
In the Community
Discover Brigham
Over 1,000 participants registered for the virtual Discover Brigham event on November 12th to learn from and celebrate the talented contributions of the research community at BWH. A number of digital projects led by Brigham innovators, and supported by iHub were featured including:
  • Hey Briggie—a digital solution using conversational artificial intelligence to improve patient safety and experience led by Samir Tulebaev and Steve Penney.
  • AI-powered approach to maintain stable vital signs during Cesarean delivery presented by Vesela Kovacheva, MD, PhD.
  • Smartphone-based microscopes with applications in infectious diseases and fertility diagnostics featuring Hadi Shafiee, PhD.
iHub Mentions
Article: DOIT in Healthcare IT News
iHub's Decreasing Operational Inefficiencies Together (DOIT) campaign was recently featured by Healthcare IT News. With over 240 innovative ideas to solve burdensome and inefficient work submitted in just under four weeks, the DOIT campaign was a shining example of the ingenuity of the Brigham community and the power of crowdsourced innovation. Read the article.
Publication: Chatbots can be effective tools in scalable digital triage
During COVID-19, a cross-disciplinary team, including members from iHub, implemented a digital pre-hospital triage solution to direct the general public to appropriate care settings. A digital triage solution directed patients before showing up at the emergency department and clinics, minimizing resource consumption and the risk of viral exposure to other patients and staff. Read the publication.
Webinar: How COVID-19 is changing innovation priorities at health systems
COVID-19 certainly necessitated an urgent shift in innovation priorities at Mass General Brigham. In a recent webinar from the Center for Connected Medicine, our medical director, Mark Zhang, DO, discusses how our organization swiftly answered the call to build digital interventions for the COVID-19 pandemic. Watch the webinar.
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Since its launch in 2013, the Brigham Digital Innovation Hub (iHub) has been a leader in Boston’s health care innovation ecosystem. Serving as a connection point between experts at Brigham Health and the broader innovation ecosystem of start-ups, industry and venture capitalists, the iHub helps enable and advance collaboration needed to achieve the promise of digital health innovation.