AMA launches Silicon Valley company to grow innovation footprint

The American Medical Association (AMA) has announced a $15 million investment to become founding partner of a healthcare innovation company, called Health2047, that will conduct rapid exploration of innovative solutions to the biggest challenges facing the nation’s 1.1 million physicians and the patients they serve.

“Improving the health of the nation is at the core of the AMA's work and Health2047 will build partnerships to create new solutions for physicians and their patients that improve healthcare delivery and health outcomes,” AMA CEO and executive vice president James L. Madara, MD, who serves as board chair of Health2047, said in a release. “Health2047’s product orientation and entrepreneurial DNA will help forge new paths and bring commercial solutions to market faster.”

Health2047 will be a standalone, for-profit entity and an integrated innovation company that combines strategy, design and venture disciplines, working in partnership with leading companies, physicians and entrepreneurs to improve healthcare, according to AMA. Its new Silicon Valley-based innovation studio will draw upon the AMA’s deep subject matter expertise and the organization’s unique relationship with physicians nationwide to develop new products, tools and resources that improve the practice of medicine and the delivery of healthcare to patients. Health2047 will collaborate with AMA content experts across a range of medical, health policy and practice areas as well as integrate healthcare companies, technology companies and entrepreneurs to co-develop, create and spin out offerings that can have large scale, systemic impact on healthcare and medical practice.

The AMA’s financial commitment to establish Health2047 represents a major step in expanding its innovation ecosystem. Recently the AMA has integrated innovation into its work resulting in internally generated physician-oriented digital tools as well as targeted engagement of healthcare startups.

“Our investment in Health2047 tangibly underscores the AMA’s ongoing commitment to innovation and collaboration in health care. This dynamic new environment will include the physician perspective in every major innovation cycle, ensuring that physicians play a greater role in leading changes that will move healthcare forward,” said Madara.