The Duke Institute for Health Innovation (DIHI) catalyzes transformative innovations in health and health care through implementation of high-impact innovations, leadership development, and cultivation of a community of entrepreneurship.

 

The Duke Institute for Health Innovation (DIHI) is a platform for catalyzing and advancing innovations across the health enterprise.  While based within the Duke University School of Medicine, we work closely with the clinical enterprise, including hospitals, home care and hospice and clinics to implement real-world innovation solutions to address and solve pressing challenges in health and health care.  DIHI invests in innovations to reinvent health care and to create sustainable differentiation and value for our patients and the community. 

 As a Duke Health “Living Lab” for developing new models of care across the care spectrum, we develop, evaluate and integrate new models in care settings and then facilitate dissemination and scaling across Duke Health. The principal goal of DIHI is to serve as a facilitative platform for innovation to improve clinical outcomes, cost, access, provider well-being and population health improvement.

 DIHI sources, funds and executes innovation projects through two primary methods – an annual RFA process for which priority areas for proposals are determined by Duke Health leadership and an annual shark-tank style DIHI Innovation Jam. Once projects are selected, the DIHI team works closely with faculty to refine the specific innovations, whether in new care models, digital health, AI and machine learning algorithms,  software development, clinical decision support or business model planning, before helping to integrate the projects in close collaboration with transdisciplinary teams of providers, solution architects and administrators in the clinical enterprise.

 One of the key mission areas served by DIHI is to support the creation of transformative educational experience for our many students and trainees. With this aim in mind, we work closely with faculty mentors to serve as the third year curricular research and innovation project home for several students enrolled in Duke University School of Medicine. Our pool of DIHI Scholars also extends to undergraduates, residents and fellows.

 Since its inception in 2013, DIHI has developed and implemented over 65 innovative solutions at Duke Health and has been instrumental in launching over 10 companies and creating foundational platforms for integrating AI, machine learning, data sciences and digital health into routine clinical care.  Additionally, we have successfully licensed our technologies to facilitate the uptake of innovations to improve patient outcomes beyond Duke.

 DIHI connects expertise from academia, medicine, government, and industry — leveraging multidisciplinary talent to promote novel approaches to addressing important health care challenges. We help to establish strategic partnerships for the development and deployment of new technologies and to translate and scale ideas into outside Duke.

DIHI is: 

  • A home where Duke University and Duke Health faculty, staff, trainees, and students can advance innovations in health and health care delivery;

  • An entry point to the Duke Health clinical enterprise for testing new ideas;

  • A hub that facilitates collaboration with those external to Duke Health;

  • A platform for developing multidisciplinary technologies and programs;

  • A place to develop educational programs around innovation, management, and leadership; and

  • A sustained commitment to health innovation.