Cedars-Sinai and MemorialCare Health Systems Launch Strategic Partnership to Accelerate Innovation in Health Care

ORANGE and LOS ANGELES Counties, Calif., May 7, 2014 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- To help develop and accelerate innovative technology to benefit patients, two prominent health systems in California—Cedars-Sinai Health System and MemorialCare Health System—announced they are launching Summation Health Ventures, a new partnership that will accelerate health care innovation.

The goals of the collaboration are to improve quality of care, enhance patient experiences and decrease the cost of care. The partnership enables entrepreneurs, innovators, inventors and companies focused on technologies in the health information, medical device and health care services sectors to leverage clinical and technical expertise of the two health systems.   

Summation Health Ventures provides a valuable gateway for entrepreneurs to develop, refine and advance product development. The partnership leverages an extensive network of human capital and organizational resources offered by MemorialCare and Cedars-Sinai hospitals, physicians and other clinicians, information technology professionals, administrative staff and hundreds of locations throughout Southern California. It promotes high quality, efficient and effective health care while ensuring local communities early access to emerging health care products, services, medical devices, information and other technologies. 

Strategic investments will focus on start-up, privately-held, early- to mid-stage health care companies with a proven and experienced management team, revenue growth potential and products and services that can improve performance and achieve success in the marketplace.

"The partnership offers a remarkable platform for entrepreneurs to gain the medical and technological insights critical for widespread adoption of products that positively impact health care," says Brant Heise, Summation Health Ventures managing director. "Highly respected health systems like MemorialCare and Cedars aligned in one strategic investment and innovation vehicle provide multiple opportunities, resources and locations for entrepreneurs to review and bring to market products and services that can positively impact health care consumers and organizations. We offer an ideal approach to accelerate innovation while delivering specific, tangible and strategic value."

MemorialCare is a national leader in this sector, with two decades experience in strategic investment funding through MemorialCare Innovation Fund which has had successful strategic partnerships with companies focused on health care programs, services, medical devices and information technology. These efforts have helped MemorialCare significantly improve performance and advance its standing as a pioneer and innovator in evidence-based medicine and advanced information technology. Cedars-Sinai has extensive experience partnering with innovative companies on developing new technologies, ranging from devices that pioneered minimally invasive surgery to information technology applications that help physicians and nurses at the patient's bedside and in the operating room as well as its role as one of the nation's leading hospitals in National Institutes of Health research funding.

Summation Health Ventures' new corporate entity is equally owned and governed by Cedars-Sinai and MemorialCare, and may add other partners in the future. Together, the organizations will leverage their strengths as highly recognized health care providers with long histories dating back more than a century and strong footprints throughout Southern California.

"Summation Health Ventures provides emerging companies a powerful potential for value creation, thanks to the diversity and strengths of our two organizations," says Barry Arbuckle, Ph.D., MemorialCare Health System president and CEO. "This is enhanced considerably by the experience and expertise of MemorialCare and Cedars-Sinai physicians and staff who are acknowledged leaders in spearheading and advancing health care innovation. Our ultimate goals are to improve quality, enhance patient safety and create greater value in health care delivery."

"Patient-centered information technologies are essential tools to providing the highest quality of care," said Thomas M. Prisleac, Cedars-Sinai's president and CEO. "This partnership between Cedars-Sinai and MemorialHealth will foster extraordinary innovation that will help physicians, nurses, other health care professionals and patients locally and around the nation."

For MemorialCare and Cedars-Sinai, a company's strategic relationship and involvement with Summation Health Ventures is as important as the investment opportunity. This synergy is what drives the ultimate value and return on investment.

MemorialCare and Cedars-Sinai together have a total of seven hospitals with about 2,500 licensed beds, 4,700 affiliated physicians, 21,600 employees and 250 health care provider locations serving two million patients annually. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center and MemorialCare's Long Beach Memorial/Miller Children's Hospital Long Beach are home to the West's two largest teaching hospital campuses and California's largest emergency-trauma centers. Miller Children's is the state's biggest children's hospital. The network also includes community hospitals and scores of physician groups, outpatient facilities, imaging and ambulatory surgery centers, urgent care and a health plan.

Centers of excellence encompass cancer, heart, orthopedics, pediatrics, obstetrics, critical care, imaging, neurosciences, geriatrics, emergency medicine, medical genetics, information technology and other programs and services. In addition to conducting basic and clinical research, the health systems train the next generation of physicians, researchers and allied health professionals, with 900 physician residents and fellows participating in nearly 100 graduate medical education programs, 1,850 nursing students and hundreds of others professionals pursuing degrees in several clinical and administrative specialties.

Cedars-Sinai Health System is an independent, private, not-for-profit organization with 10,200 employees, 2,100 physicians and 2,000 volunteers. The heart of Cedars-Sinai is an 886-bed academic medical center Also located on the Cedars-Sinai campus are outpatient and research facilities, as well as the recently opened Advanced Health Sciences Pavilion, which integrates outpatient procedure suites, research labs, and Cedars-Sinai's Heart Institute, Regenerative Medicine Institute and neurosciences. Within a mile radius of the main campus are numerous offices of the Cedars-Sinai Medical Group.

MemorialCare Health System is a not-for-profit Southern California integrated delivery system and pioneer in evidence-based medicine with 200 care sites, 11,400 employees, 2,600 affiliated physicians; six hospitals—Long Beach Memorial, Miller Children's Hospital Long Beach, Community Hospital Long Beach, Orange Coast Memorial in Fountain Valley and Saddleback in Laguna Hills and San Clemente; MemorialCare Medical Group; Greater Newport Physicians (GNP); Seaside Health Plan; ambulatory surgery centers; and imaging, outpatient and urgent care facilities. A national pioneer in evidence-based medicine, it is among 35 employers globally receiving the prestigious Gallup Great Workplace Award.

SOURCE MemorialCare Health System