Innovation developments

There were a lot of exciting innovation developments happening in health IT this week from smart contact lenses to work on new development hubs.

The U.S. patent office granted Google a patent for its smart contact lens featuring a chip, electric circuit and sensor technology.

The search giant has previously said it is partnering with the pharmaceutical company Novartis to create a smart contact lens that could monitor blood sugar for people with diabetes. Google has been testing various prototypes of smart contact lens and is currently in talks with the FDA about a lens that measures glucose levels in users’ tears, according to an article in TIME. The company says the chip and sensor are embedded between two layers of contact lens material and a tiny pinhole lets tear fluid from the eye reach the glucose sensor, which can measure levels every second.

New York City is set to ramp up its life sciences position through a $150 million public-private partnership and increasing research and development space by 150 percent.

The Early-Stage Life Sciences Funding Initiative will identify and invest in the most promising research generated by the city’s academic medical institutions and leading entrepreneurs.

Meanwhile, New Orleans-based Ochsner Health System has launched innovationOchsner, or iO, that will support companies working to revolutionize care. The organization also announced a three-year innovation challenge in collaboration with GE Healthcare.

iO will encourage new thinking around the best ways to enable patients to collect their health data and impact their care, according to a release. It will partner with other leading innovators both inside and outside of the healthcare industry to identify promising solutions and provide resources and support to develop concepts. iO will potentially provide an environment in which innovation for both patients and providers can be tested, and also may fund the future development and launch of successful ideas to the point that they are available to other patients and healthcare providers worldwide.

Also, this week the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute announced $5 million in funding for a demonstration project of its national clinical research data network.

PCORI, a not-for-profit organization created under the Affordable Care Act to fund comparative-effectiveness research, approved an initial $93.5 million funding round in December 2013 to build the data network--PCORnet.

Initial funding went to 18 research networks focused on patients with specific health conditions who are interested in sharing health data; and 11 clinical data research networks with healthcare systems collecting data during care delivery.

Exciting times.

Beth Walsh

Clinical Innovation + Technology editor