Skip to content

Technology & Innovation — December 17, 2014

Hospitals Join the Sharing Economy in Hopes of Boosting Efficiency

A new startup in Boston is helping hospitals save money by pooling resources and sharing expensive, not-often-used equipment.

Robert Montenegro

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Here’s an interesting piece by Laura Lorenzetti of Fortune about a new Boston startup called Cohealo, which aims to make hospitals more efficient and therefore reduce the cost of healthcare in the United States. Cohealo’s strategy can be compared to those of other “sharing economy” companies like Uber and Airbnb. Where those two companies match customers to underused supplies (drivers/cars and apartments), Lorenzetti explains that Cohealo has “created a platform for hospitals to share equipment”:

“Hospitals use any given machine about 42% of the time, at most, according to a GE Healthcare study. That adds up to a lot of excess capacity, especially as surgery equipment gets more procedure specific. It also means that it takes longer for the hospital to pay the machine off…

Cohealo’s goal is to push medical equipment usage rates closer to 75% to 80% by pooling hospitals resources. It does this by providing a software platform to hospital systems that catalogs and organizes their equipment inventory, and then allows doctors or nurses to simply tap and order what they need when they need it from any hospital in their network.”

Cohealo is disrupting an industry in which the only ways to obtain equipment — rental or purchase — are both inefficient. Take a look at Lorenzetti’s full article (linked again below) for more about Cohealo’s business model and why it’s like nothing else the industry has seen before.

Read more at Fortune

Photo credit: Hadrian / Shutterstock

Sign up for the Smarter Faster newsletter

A weekly newsletter featuring the biggest ideas from the smartest people

Related

Culture & Religion

How to Start a Sharing Economy (In Which People Actually Share Things) in Your Neighborhood

The so-called sharing economy rarely features actual instances of people sharing items with each other, or at least not without a price. Starting a neighborhood sharing network is a great way to unite a community beneath the banner of pooled resources.

Multiple country flags on poles against a clear blue sky, representing international diversity and unity.

From global to planetary: Is new governance needed in a post-Holocene world?

The nation-state had a good run, but its usefulness may have come to an end.

Portrait of a smiling man in front of a background featuring chemical structures and molecular models in green and blue hues.

Inside the battle for FDA approval of MDMA therapy

MAPS founder Rick Doblin speaks to Big Think about the FDA’s rejection of MDMA therapy and the future of psychedelic treatments.

Fifteen colorful emoji faces on a textured background, each capturing different moods like joy, anger, sadness, and surprise.

Heidegger’s “mood theory” explains why you do anything at all

You’re a moody person. You have to be — because understanding moods philosophically can be crucial to your work-life.

A bear attempting to catch a jumping fish near a waterfall.

Nature’s “perfect balance” is a mystery scientists are trying to decode

“While society’s been humming along and enjoying all these advances in agriculture and medicine, in the last 50 or 60 years, ecologists have learned a lot about how nature works. I’ve codified these into a set of rules called the ‘Serengeti Rules.’”

Up Next

Technology & Innovation

New Skype Feature Removes Language Barriers by Translating Conversations in Real-Time

This Monday, Skype launched a beta version of the program that will allow its more than 300 million monthly users to talk to each other, regardless of whether they speak the same language.