UC Davis Health and General Catalyst announce digital medicine collaboration

UC Davis Health and General Catalyst have announced a new collaboration to develop a digital transformation strategy, bolstering the prominent academic medical center’s status as one of America's leaders in digital medicine.

As part of this partnership, UC Davis Health will utilize the General Catalyst ecosystem of companies to drive artificial intelligence (AI) and digital health innovations in several areas. These will include health care delivery, research, education, and public service, as well as the medical center's ongoing transformational efforts in operations, care and outcomes.

“Digital innovations in medicine have the potential to not only improve patient outcomes but be a game-changer for the entire health care sector,” said Ashish Atreja, chief information officer and chief digital officer at UC Davis Health. “This collaboration will create an environment that fosters open innovation in digital health, which we hope will lead to new solutions to improve the lives of our patients, increase the efficiency of health care systems and have a positive impact on the health of our communities.”

Sharing knowledge to transform digital medicine

Central to this collaboration is a mutual commitment to knowledge-sharing among UC Davis Health and General Catalyst. They will form a collaboration committee to ensure strategic alignment, mutual accountability and operational connectivity. The group will explore collaboration opportunities, co-development of new businesses and co-development of products, services, and technologies by leveraging UC Davis Health as an innovation center.

“In order to accelerate health care transformation, General Catalyst believes that partnering with leading-edge systems like UC Davis Health is instrumental. As an academic medical center with an established innovation arm, Digital CoLab, UC Davis Health has spearheaded transformation efforts within the broader UC system to aim to deliver improved health outcomes,” said Daryl Tol, head of health assurance ecosystem at General Catalyst.

To showcase emerging digital transformation trends, General Catalyst will also host UC Davis Health for sessions to share strategy around advances at the intersection of healthcare and technology. These will help UC Davis Health incorporate approaches and solutions around health equity, digital literacy, and data inclusivity objectives.

“UC Davis Health’s collaborative culture and demonstrated commitment to health equity makes General Catalyst proud to welcome them into our Health Assurance partnerships,” Tol said. We are excited to initiate this journey together, engage our health industry experience, and facilitate cross-pollination across our ecosystem partners to help drive UC Davis Health’s sustainable health care transformation.”

Building on a culture of innovation

This partnership is the latest initiative from UC Davis Health to advance digital medicine through its Digital CoLab (Digital Collaborative for Innovation and Validation), led by Keisuke Nakagawa, director of innovation for the Digital CoLab and executive director of the Cloud Innovation Center. The program is the AI and digital health innovation hub for UC Davis Health and is focused on accelerating digital health technologies to make healthcare more accessible, equitable, and inclusive.

“This unique collaboration will create an environment of shared learning to maximize the value for the funders and streamline the innovation efforts at UC Davis Health and across the UC system,” said Yauheni Solad, chief medical information officer for Digital Health and vice president of innovation at UC Davis Health.

Learn more about the exciting opportunities emerging from this partnership during our Future & Health Investment Summit during HLTH on November 14th.