Over a year ago, University of North Carolina Wilmington (UNCW) and New Hanover Regional Medical Center (NHRMC) began efforts of educating health care professionals and College of Health and Human Services (CHHS) faculty on how to build a new innovative business, and solve a real time health care problem. As usual, we did this in our silos of our organizations. Realizing that true successful innovation comes from the diversity of ideas and experiences, we formed a team of health care professionals and faculty to design a health care innovation certificate program. This program would not only be for health care professionals and faculty but also students and others in our community that are interested.

This program is backed by an engagement grant from NC IDEA Foundation. NC IDEA ENGAGE grants help entrepreneurship advocates from all over the state to offer programs, pilot new initiatives and organize virtual and in-person events that bring people together to support entrepreneurial activity. Entrepreneurial ecosystems and economically strong and diverse communities go hand in hand. For more information on NC IDEA programs and events: https://ncidea.org
  
This will be a team based, interactive and hands on learning experience. This semester long course will get people out of the building talking to customers to discover pain points in health care. Then take these pain points through design thinking innovation to develop possible solutions. Teams will build a business around one of the solutions by building a business model canvas.
 
After the business is developed, teams will learn how to make an elevator pitch and a 10-minute presentation to investors similar to Shark Tank. There will be meet and greet of the different health care entrepreneurs in our own community throughout the course, guest speakers with expertise in health care business, and an introduction to all the entrepreneurial activities in our community.

We hope this new Health Care Certificate Program at UNCW will change our thinking on how to solve tough health care problems and be a great team building experience for everyone in the community.

Thanks to our founding team members:

UNCW Team: Mitch Bloomer, Director of Continuing & Professional Education; Diane Durance, Director Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE); Tiffany Erichsen, Coordinator, FuseCR; Dan Fisher, PhD, Associate Professor, Healthcare Administration; Justine Reel, PhD, Associate Dean for Research & Innovation; Eric Richardson Ph.D, Associate Professor & Program Coordinator for MHA

NHRMC Innovation Team: Matt Hernandez, System Architect; Chris Hillier, Executive Director

Consultant: Mary Beth Bobek, Pharm.D. MBA

This will be open to all health care professionals, faculty, students and anyone interested in learning more. Launch will be Fall of 2021, with limited registration each semester both individually or as teams (~25-30 people) and will include four hours/week in person instruction and asynchronous learning. Continuing professional educational and academic credits will be available. Hosted at the UNCW CIE. More to come in the Spring!
For more information or questions: [email protected]
 
Diane Durance, MPA, is director of UNC Wilmington's Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (CIE). The CIE is a resource for the start-up and early-stage business community to help diversify the local economy with innovative solutions. For more information, visit www.uncw.edu/cie.