Brazil's Albert Einstein Hospital Evolves Tech Strategy To Deliver Low-Cost Healthcare At Scale

One of the leading healthcare institutions in Latin America, Albert Einstein Hospital is moving toward the next stage of its multimillion-dollar technology and innovation strategy. The aim is to broaden access to advanced medicine through initiatives with actors such as startups as well as tech and healthcare organizations worldwide.

Founded in São Paulo by the city’s Jewish community following World War II, The Albert Einstein Israelite Hospital started its activities in 1955. Considered Brazil’s most modern private hospital, it also has a social assistance program encompassing care in low-income communities and public-private partnerships for public hospitals. With nearly 25,000 staff including over 10,000 registered doctors, the hospital specializes in high-complexity medicine, focusing on cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, neurology, and surgery, and frequently ranks among the best medical institutions globally.

Despite adopting state-of-the-art technology since its inception nearly seven decades ago, the healthcare organization only formally established a health innovation area working alongside research and development 10 years ago. However, a lot has happened since, and the hospital now invests around 180 million Brazilian reais ($34 million) a year in technology innovation. Activities in that space are guided by bio convergence, a concept whereby projects at the intersection of biotech, engineering, and advanced computing focus on addressing healthcare challenges.

“Cellular therapy, gene editing, nanotechnology, and material engineering are examples of areas we want to work on. We believe that a convergence of these different areas of knowledge in medicine represents a huge opportunity of value generation for Brazilian society”, says Rodrigo Demarch, chief innovation officer at Albert Einstein Hospital, in an interview with FORBES.

“That relates not only to the possibility of a positive impact on the healthcare system as a whole but also the ability to bring increasingly personalized healthcare at a lower cost to as many people as possible. That objetive is directly linked to [Brazil’s] economic development, being able to keep expertise in the country, creating new businesses and ultimately, generating wealth”, he adds.

According to Demarch, the bioconvergence vision at Einstein should translate into high-precision tests that will allow early diagnostics for certain types of cancer, for example. In addition, the hospital is developing technology-enabled approaches such as the next generation of telemedicine to broaden access to care and diagnostics for vulnerable and remote populations across Brazil in areas such as the Amazon.

“We plan to head towards a future of low-cost precision medicine, where we can detect and prevent health conditions across a large part of the population with ultra-sophisticated tests at a fraction of the current cost. We want to take care excellence to populations that have no access to that kind of service, and the only way we can do that is through technology”, the chief innovation officer says.

Building on innovation efforts

To achieve its goal of personalized healthcare, the Brazilian hospital will use its entire portfolio of innovation initiatives. Einstein’s core area within the innovation directorate is a technology transfer office, an institute authorized by Brazil’s Ministry of Science, technology and Innovations. It manages the hospital’s intellectual property and develops several open innovation projects alongside healthcare firms, large tech corporations, and medical device companies. That is the hospital’s most profitable innovation area, whereby the likes of Epson, Canon, LG, and Siemens hire Einstein to develop initiatives such as algorithms or the software installed in equipment such as magnetic resonance machines.

In addition, the hospital has a health design lab, where most of the innovation specialists are based. The area focuses on applying methodologies such as design thinking inside the organization, including all service and clinical areas. “Fostering new digital services and products is crucial for spreading an innovation culture across the organization,” Demarch says. To illustrate his point, the executive mentions that around 15% of the hospital’s workforce has been trained in structured innovation approaches, including bootcamps or more extended programs.

Some of the initiatives led by the health design team have also been repurposed for the healthcare sector, with companies such as pharmaceuticals group GSK hiring Einstein to map the needs of specific cancer patients. The design lab has also created some spinoffs, including Escala, a software initially designed by an intensive care doctor who needed a system to manage rosters. Today, the platform is in place in over 40 high-complexity wards in Brazil’s public and private healthcare systems. Moreover, Einstein has a biotechnology hub, which encompasses a program for entrepreneurship and innovation in that field, building on Einstein’s experiences as a university with over 45,000 students in courses such as medicine. The hospital is also building a 5G innovation hub to develop new approaches to healthcare based on the fifth-generation mobile technology.

The choice to adopt bio convergence as a critical strategic pillar builds on Einstein’s innovation efforts as well as several international benchmarking exercises carried out over recent years, particularly alongside academic medical centers – healthcare systems that are connected to academia and research, such as Johns Hopkins University and Stanford University in the US, and the Sheba Medical Center in Israel.

“Countries worldwide have been looking at bio convergence for some time, and we’ve followed that trend closely. As we look at what we’ve built over the years across our social assistance, education, research, and technology work, we see there is a commercial opportunity, but we also understand that helping develop the national healthcare sector is part of our social responsibility goals”, Demarch says.

Under public-private partnerships, Einstein runs three high-complexity hospitals in São Paulo, including a center focused on cancer treatments and Goiânia, as well as dozens of primary healthcare centers. “We see the private and public healthcare systems as a single thing regarding our services. Given the significant socioeconomic challenges and the inequality Brazil has regarding healthcare funding and access, we understand an institution like ours has an important role to play”, the CIO points out.

Developing a biotech industry

The hospital’s startup incubator, Eretz.bio, is another critical part of Einstein’s innovation plans. It has supported more than 150 companies from fields such as digital health, biotechnology, and deeptech since launching in 2017. The incubator has since become an open innovation hub, where the hospital connects the startup ecosystem with other health organizations. Eretz also serves as a platform to introduce startups from other markets to connect with Brazil-based clients and wants to intensify its efforts to attract more international tech-based firms to its program.

“We want to act as a gateway to Brazil for [international] startups. At the same time, we expect these relationships will bring us closer to certain emerging technologies and help us fulfill our objective of building a sustainable and equitable healthcare system”, Demarch points out. The hospital also has an investment fund run by venture capital firm Vox Capital, which invests around 20 million Brazilian reais ($3,8 million) a year in co-investments focused on early-stage startups.

In addition, because of its capacity to bring together intellectual capital, financial resources, and infrastructure, the hospital expects to be able to unleash innovation in biotech by bringing academia, government, and the private sector together to innovate. “This is an ecosystem play, but we are well-positioned to connect the dots and act as a propulsor to creating a biotechnology industry in Brazil,” he argues.

According to the innovation chief, the main challenge involved in taking the leap and providing affordable, advanced healthcare in Brazil is doing so at scale in a country of continental dimensions. “[Scaling healthcare innovations] will be our main focus over the next few years,” he says. For the next few months, the executive hopes to have evolved the various pillars of innovation already in motion at Einstein, evolving in its bio convergence vision alongside national and international partners.

“In addition to biotech, we hope to make inroads in 5G projects, take our incubator to the next level and hopefully see the first results regarding healthcare products reaching the marketplace and changing the lives of millions of people”, Demarch points out. “Moving forward in those areas will hopefully create new innovation centers in Brazil’s public healthcare system. It would be great if, in a year’s time, we can look back and say we have achieved all of these things.”