Nashville-based Ardent Health Services has partnered with SwitchPoint Ventures to launch an innovation studio focused on transforming healthcare delivery and administration. The partnership is an outgrowth of the companies’ two-year collaboration in developing AI solutions, combining Ardent’s resources and broad clinical footprint with SwitchPoint Ventures’ expertise in artificial intelligence and innovation strategy.
The new studio builds on a model that uses Ardent’s 30 hospitals and 200 sites of care across six states as a testbed for addressing entrenched challenges within healthcare delivery. The studio’s charge is to develop and deploy data-driven solutions across Ardent’s footprint, with an eye toward launching them as independent ventures serving the broader healthcare industry.
“Ardent and SwitchPoint share a commitment to addressing the root problems that burden healthcare delivery,” said Ardent President and CEO Marty Bonick, in a statement. “Making healthcare work better demands more than status quo thinking. SwitchPoint’s team listens, breaks down assumptions, attacks the salient issues, and iterates until there’s a breakthrough. Together, I’m confident we will bring big ideas and bold solutions to life in the areas that matter most to patients and caregivers.”
In 2021, Ardent and SwitchPoint partnered to develop Winnow, an AI solution for clinician recruitment. Winnow uses predictive analytics to help Ardent and other healthcare providers source, recruit, and retain clinicians who are ideal fits for each role. Winnow was recently awarded the 2022 NEXT Award for Best Healthcare Startup by the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.
Ardent has also implemented Polaris, SwitchPoint’s solution for accurately predicting patient volume - months in advance - in any clinical setting. Ardent has adopted Polaris in the belief that optimized schedules will have a ripple effect: boosting the satisfaction and retention of clinical staff, streamlining hospital operations, and improving patient care and satisfaction.
Ardent also recently announced the launch of a state-of-the-art continuous inpatient monitoring program with BioIntelliSense, a virtual nursing program with care.ai, and a remote patient monitoring initiative with Cadence.
