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By Alissa Gulin, Daily Record Business Writer

A sizeable portion of a federal grant will go toward launching an intensive, 16-week accelerator program for health information technology entrepreneurs in Maryland.

Rich Bendis, president and CEO of BioHealth Innovation, said participants in the competitive program will come to Baltimore, meet with potential investors and partners and access the resources of Johns Hopkins Medicine, one of the partners in the accelerator. Officials will unveil more details of the program within a couple of weeks.

BioHealth Innovation, a Rockville-based group that acts as an intermediary between research institutions and the private sector, was one of two Maryland organizations that received a combined $520,000 grant, announced Wednesday, to help grow the state’s burgeoning biotechnology industry. The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, an economic development group, was the other recipient.

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore has received a $520,000 federal grant to bolster the state’s biotechnology industry.

The Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore (EAGB) will work with BioHealth Innovation in Montgomery County to develop a “Healthcare Regional Innovation Cluster” with the grant. The grant was awarded by the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Economic Development Administration.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Barbara A. Mikulski (D-Md.), Chairwoman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, today announced that the Economic Alliance of Greater Baltimore, Inc. and BioHealth Innovation, Inc. of Montgomery County have been awarded a combined $520,000 grant through the U.S. Department of Commerce’s (DOC) Economic Development Administration (EDA). The federal funding will be used to establish the Healthcare Regional Innovation Cluster (H-RIC) initiative which will combine the strengths of Maryland’s cutting-edge health research institutions and unique federal assets to speed the development of new treatments and cures, supporting Maryland jobs and keeping families healthy.

This workshop on Oct 9th. had been cancelled due to the Government Shutdown and will be rescheduled at a later date.

With Fall approaching, everyone is preparing for their favorite things whether that’s football season, pumpkin carving, or more reasonable temperatures in Central Maryland. Fall is also a great time for the Small Business Innovation Research grant program throughout National Institutes of Health. In partnership with the NIH, BioHealth Innovation is sponsoring a fall gathering to talk about SBIR awards.

It’s useful to hear directly from NIH program officials on the current funding priorities per Institute. We have assembled program leads from NHLBI, NIAID, and NCI who can provide small businesses with more insight into their SBIR programs. They will also be available for one-on-one consultations at the conclusion of the event.

Event Details:
Wednesday, October 9th, 1:00pm – 4:00pm (EDT)
VisArts
155 Gibbs Street, 6th Floor
Rockville, MD 20850
(Overlooking Rockville Town Center)

Hospital executives have never been frivolous when it comes to investing in technology, but as reimbursements shrink, the need to carefully analyze each purchasing decision has never been more urgent.

Given all the worthwhile – and not so worthwhile – options, what choices are hospital administrators currently making?

Since IT spending is largely taken up by meeting meaningful use and ICD-10 requirements, said Chantal Worzala, director of policy at the American Hospital Association, hospitals don’t have much left over for investments in other things.

Capital expenditure per bed for IT grew by 62 percent between 2010 and 2011, Worzala said, whereas total capital expenditure per bed grew by only 2.6 percent.

Image Courtesy of photostock / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

This summer marked the inauguration of the DreamIt Health accelerator, a startup boot camp focused on healthcare IT run by DreamIt Ventures and powered by Penn Medicine and Independence Blue Cross.  In four short months, ten extraordinary teams of entrepreneurs, including four from Wharton, were brought together from around the country to achieve significant milestones going from concepts to prototypes, products, pilots and revenues.  As the program wound down, the investor, startup and healthcare community turned out in force for Demo Day to see a snapshot of each company’s progress and plans for the future.

Free Program Helps Researchers Explore the Commercial Potential of Technologies

The DC National Science Foundation (NSF) Innovation Corps (I-Corps) program is now accepting applications for its October cohort.

Open to research teams and technology entrepreneurs from universities, federal laboratories, agencies and the general community in the Mid-Atlantic Region, the free program guides researchers in exploring the commercial potential of their inventions.

“I-Corps provides real world, hands-on training on how to successfully incorporate innovations into successful products,” said DC I-Corps Director Edmund Pendleton. “The ultimate goal is to create a new venture or licensing opportunity for program participants.”