How the Caregiver Invention Lab at Intermountain Health supports caregivers as they follow their dreams

As a model healthcare system, we recognize our caregivers are positioned in the industry to know where improvements can be made, how to innovate care delivery, and how we achieve our mission of helping people live the healthiest lives possible.  

As part of our Strategy Office at Intermountain Health, the Caregiver Invention Lab is the entrepreneurial partner for caregivers to submit their invention ideas. The primary objective of the Caregiver Invention Lab is to create an environment where caregivers feel supported in their desire to innovate, and to provide the structure for those innovations to be used. This includes validating and helping create a business plan for our caregivers' invention ideas, which may come in the form of medical products, devices, applications, software, technology, or new businesses. 

We also have enterprise-wide funding to invest in inventions that are approved by a committee for scale and growth. Plus, there are financial incentives for caregivers when their invention is commercialized outside of Intermountain.

For example, before joining Intermountain, Bo Nemelka, strategic planning partner, had an idea to help children connect more with the physical world, especially children with physical, mental, and behavioral needs like his son, who has autism. We live in a scary and ever-increasing digital ecosystem, and the harm to children is growing. He believed there was a better way to help families like his own, so he took a leap of faith and tried building a product. He came up with the name, bought the website, secured a loan, hired an app developer, and experienced the entrepreneurial roller coaster. 

It didn’t take long to realize his invention would not reach its potential without a credible partner, which ended up being Intermountain! This invention is still in development, and we're excited to see what the future holds for his simple, yet meaningful invention idea.