The Fogarty Institute at El Camino Hospital Works to Incubate Medical Advances
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Over the last few decades, some feel that the United States has struggled to stay competitive with other countries in regard to technological, automotive and even medical advancement. While a great deal of medical research is conducted in the United States, much of this research has been limited to academic institutions. The Fogarty Institute for Innovation has sought to be a place for ingenuity, research and business incubation that does not rely on an academic setting.
Photo: Keith B. Dixon
Unlike academic medical institutions, the Fogarty Institute for Innovation is not tied to a university. It was founded in 2006 by Thomas Fogarty, M.D., after being approached by El Camino Hospital in Mountain View. “He has a knack for innovative ideas and bringing them to implementation, and our thought was to try to create something that was a nonprofit that would be a place for physicians, clinicians and engineers, anybody really, who had an innovative idea that was going to advance patient care and make it better,” says Ann Fyfe, Vice President of El Camino Hospital and Executive Vice President of the Fogarty Institute for Innovation. “He set up a nonprofit with the sole purpose of creating an environment for people to come and take an incubator approach to ideas, to get programs launched and also to serve as a vehicle for education.”
At the Fogarty Institute for Innovation, it is believed that being passionate about helping patients and working hard to improve care is what is needed to spark medical innovation. “When people come to the Institute, they come with different concepts and different perspectives in what we have to offer, but what we like to see come into the Institute is something that shows great promise for the greatest number of patients possible. We like to see people who have done some significant work, preliminary work in a way of device. We want to see bench testing, animal testing and see that they’re doing everything they should do to get themselves in the market,” says Dr. Fogarty, founder of the Fogarty Institute for Innovation and internationally recognized holder of over 100 patents. “Our mission as physicians and support personnel for physicians is to make things better. Look at it from the standpoint of making things easier, safer and more efficient for a patient by providing environments and technology that make them comfortable.”
El Camino Hospital and the Fogarty Institute for Innovation quickly recognized the need for the United States to improve its medical services. Because the country has fallen behind foreign nations in some areas of medical technology and research, American patients often seek help overseas. “Patients are not getting current optimal care with the technology that is available, and they are not getting access to the kind of care that is already exported offshore,” says Dr. Fogarty. “It compares to what we did with the automotive industry. We lost our leadership in the automotive industry and we’re losing our leadership in the area of medical devices, drugs and services. It’s hard for some people to accept it, but it is in fact happening and there’s evidence to document it is happening.”
Although there are many medical research centers throughout the nation at multiple universities, it is beneficial to have them in community hospitals as well. “Academic institutions have different obligations, which makes [the physicians’] jobs very difficult. They have teaching responsibilities, they’re supposed to do research and they must also take care of patients. Compared to the obligations of a physician in practice, which is solely to treat patients, academic institutions must divide their time among all their responsibilities,” Dr. Fogarty says.
Education is also a key element of the Fogarty Institute for Innovation. Education from innovators within the Institute is encouraged, and staff are offered the opportunity for advanced training.
As a tribute to the success of the center, two companies that gained their start at the Fogarty Institute for Innovation have recently moved to bigger offices to continue their work. “We feel in both cases [these companies] are going to deliver great breakthroughs in health care,” says Fyfe.
New businesses getting their start at the Fogarty Institute for Innovation get the opportunity to work within well-appointed office space, complete with lab equipment, machinery and all the standard office equipment necessary to run a modern business. According to Dr. Frederick St. Goar, a key member of the Fogarty Institute for Innovation, not only is office space provided, but the center works as an incubator for businesses with innovative products. “We provide space and we provide what we call ‘collectual’ capital, with access to doctors, access to capital, etc.,” says Dr. St. Goar.
Education is also a key element of the Fogarty Institute for Innovation. Education from innovators within the Institute is encouraged, and staff are offered the opportunity for advanced training.
New businesses looking to develop innovations at the Fogarty Institute for Innovation still face challenges that should be expected in developing new technologies. “We’ve launched two companies and have tried different avenues,” says Fyfe. “It was a long and laborious process.” Nevertheless, the drive and the mission of the Fogarty Institute is clear: promote new innovation in health care that might not otherwise get the opportunity to be realized.
Dr. Fogarty recognizes the challenges of innovation in the United States, with multiple barriers set up by Congress and the FDA. On top of regulation, funding for research has been difficult to obtain. Such barriers have made it extremely challenging for innovation to be developed and basically hatched within the borders of the United States. The members of the Fogarty Institute for Innovation only hope that some of these barriers will be lifted in order to make further progress with simpler procedures. “We have such high expectations of the quality in the finished product and testing involved in the clinical product, to get it into general clinical practice is really an extremely challenging barrier. We need to do everything possible in a creative way to maintain that progress in the U.S. We’re trying to maintain a culture for innovation in the U.S., but it’s a diminishing concept,” says Dr. St. Goar. With the efforts of the Fogarty Institute for Innovation and other medical research centers, continued progress in medical research offers hope for continued and advanced research and innovation.
MD News August 2010