An Incubator for Change

The healthcare system in the United States is badly broken. We have allowed a dysfunctional and fractured system to develop around us, and we are not achieving the health outcomes that our citizens deserve. Many believe that primary care holds the keys to creating a thriving and fully functional healthcare system. But those working toward this end face serious challenges.

Healthcare providers and researchers at academic medical centers have long looked for innovative ways to care for patients and improve what we already do well. They’ve come up with changes large and small to help ensure the best possible outcomes.

But while innovative and often ingenious, these ideas tend to languish and get lost over the course of time. There is no incubator to gather, digest, and disseminate novel healthcare ideas. Providers and patients are left doing things “the way we always have.”

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Moving the Field Forward

By fostering forward thinking, collaboration, and rigorous dissemination of novel ideas, the Pelzman Foundation helps ensure that promising healthcare innovations are given the chance to generate positive and lasting changes for patients across the nation.

The foundation supports efforts to transform what is not working within our healthcare system, looking to improve the ways in which all members of our society seek to get to a better state of health. We aim to spark new ways of taking care of people in all healthcare settings, no matter where and when they occur, and create new collaborative efforts for change.

How We Make It Work
Healthcare providers in the competitive world of academic medicine are under intense pressure to increase patient volume, teach the next generation of clinicians, and at the same time perform meaningful research.

To encourage bold new thinking in healthcare, the Pelzman Foundation funds novel projects that aim to change the way we do things. An esteemed panel of clinician educators and other healthcare and policy experts select and award the grants.

Cornerstones of the Pelzman Foundation approach include:

Our annual Innovations in Healthcare Conference that fosters connections and collaborations among innovators
Access to online seminars, lectures, and more on such topics as systems transformation, healthcare policy, and innovations from fields outside of healthcare
Endowment of annual prizes at medical schools and residencies for the most promising healthcare innovations concepts created by medical students, residents, or junior faculty members
Dissemination of the innovations that we support through social media, meetings, newsletters, and the work of our innovation fellows as we spark new collaborative efforts across disciplines
The endowment of Innovation Fellowships to provide support for the best projects to be widely disseminated and push change forward