The new Center of Excellence will strengthen the health and economic vitality of rural communities through innovation and coalition building

ST. LOUIS – BioSTL launched The Center for Rural Health Innovation, a new Center of Excellence, to strengthen the health and economic vitality of rural communities through innovation and coalition building. BioSTL, a leader in building an innovation economy in St. Louis, has developed, recruited, and deployed cutting-edge innovation in healthcare and agriculture-food across the region. BioSTL will use its successful global innovation sourcing/deployment platform of GlobalSTL to tap into worldwide partnerships to find innovative solutions in areas like telehealth for the unique challenges facing rural communities; convene to achieve better outcomes; connect, develop, and support rural leaders; create local jobs; and inform policy.

The Center was formally announced with remarks by Missouri Governor Mike Parson at the inaugural Rural Health Symposium, sponsored by Centene, on November 2, 2021.

The Center focuses on bringing globally sourced, cutting-edge innovations into rural markets and communities to help address health and economic gaps, focusing major efforts to:

• Source, pilot, and support scaling of innovative solutions with rural communities; document outcomes and inform policy.
• Convene and cross-link communities at town, county, and state level around locally championed health and economic vitality initiatives.
• Develop and share a digital library of contacts and playbooks to help rural health leaders drive change in their communities.
• Design, develop, and manage annual community-centered Rural Health Symposium.

The 2021 Rural Health Symposium, the first for the Center, featured tangible examples of innovations that can successfully impact rural health. The Center will expand and replicate these opportunities across Missouri.

Examples of innovative solutions sourced and curated by BioSTL specifically for rural communities include:

• Babylon Health, which currently serves patients in 10 counties in Southeast Missouri as the 24/7 primary care physician via its AI-enabled mobile app. Patients have access to their primary care physician through their smartphone any time – day or night. Babylon, from the United Kingdom, was introduced to the region at the 2018 GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit, organized by BioSTL’s GlobalSTL initiative.
• The St. Louis VA uses Uniper Care’s digital helth and wellness platform to address social isolation in seniors. GlobalSTL sourced the innovation and introduced the VA to the Isreali company during the 2019 GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit.
• SWORD Health is serving Missouri and other rural communities with its physical therapy treatment platform that combines AI-powered digital therapists and human clinical teams to create custom PT exercises for patients to use at home. GlobalSTL brought the Portuguese company to the region for the 2019 GlobalSTL Health Innovation Summit.

The launch of the Center – and its annual Symposium – positions Missouri and the Midwest region as a thought leader for innovation designed specifically to address the unique challenges rural communities face.

“Rural communities have experienced diminishing healthcare infrastructure, creating significant health disparities across rural communities. Working with Missouri’s largest economic engines of agriculture and healthcare and alongside rural communities and their leaders, BioSTL sees innovation and convening rural buying power as key levers for bringing a new model of health and economic vitality to rural areas and for bridging the urban-rural divide,” said Vijay Chauhan, GlobalSTL and Center for Rural Health Innovation Lead. “BioSTL is extending its global-scale innovation platform, developed by its GlobalSTL initiative, to rural communities to deploy rural-centric innovation to address their pressing challenges.”

“The health of all Missourians has been a major focus of my administration. Innovation in rural health promises to solve some of our rural communities’ most challenging health issues by providing new technologies, new ways of thinking, new processes, and new systems,” said Governor Mike Parson. “With health and economic success linked in so many ways, if we can improve the health of our rural residents, we can increase economic opportunity.”

Gov. Parson delivered further remarks at the official launch of the new Center for Rural Health Innovation, culminating the inaugural Rural Health Symposium. Leaders from rural communities – from the domains of healthcare, business, community-based organizations, innovators, non-profit organizations, agriculture, workforce development, government, research and policy – came together to share successful approaches to improving health and economic vitality through innovation.

The Symposium focused on the goals of the Center – solving for major challenges rural communities face: healthcare access and affordability, healthcare workforce and hospital capacity, affordable internet access, and the social drivers of health unique to rural communities. Objectives of the Rural Health Symposium included:

• Creating a community-centered conversation on health and economic vitality.
• Highlighting the key challenges rural communities face in creating health and well-being for rural residents.
• Showcasing how these challenges can be addressed by a new care model of bringing whole-person care to the person vs. having the person come to the care, enabled by cutting-edge innovation.

The full agenda lists all panels and speakers.

The Center for Rural Health Innovation becomes BioSTL’s third Center of Excellence, following the development of the Center for Defense Medicine and the Center for National Pandemic Resiliency.

***

 

About BioSTL

Since 2001, BioSTL has laid the foundation for St. Louis' innovation economy with a comprehensive set of transformational programs that advance St. Louis’ leadership in solving important world challenges in agriculture, medicine, healthcare, and other technology areas. BioSTL has introduced nationally acclaimed initiatives in startup creation and investment (BioGenerator), strategic business attraction (GlobalSTL), physical environment (including the Cortex Innovation District and BioGenerator Labs), entrepreneur support, seed and venture capital, a diverse and inclusive workforce, and public policy. Find us online at biostl.org and follow us on twitter @BioSTL.

Maggie Crane | 314.422.6783 | mcrane@biostl.org