By BioSTL | November 2, 2021
ST. LOUIS – BioSTL will launch The Center for Rural Health Innovation, a new Center of Excellence, to strengthen the health and economic vitality of rural communities through innovation and coalition building. BioSTL, a leader in building an innovation economy in St. Louis, has developed, recruited, and deployed cutting-edge innovation in healthcare and agriculture-food across the region. BioSTL will use its successful global innovation sourcing/deployment platform of GlobalSTL to tap into worldwide partnerships to find innovative solutions in areas like telehealth for the unique challenges facing rural communities; convene to achieve better outcomes; connect, develop, and support rural leaders; create local jobs; and inform policy.
The Center will be formally announced with remarks by Missouri Governor Mike Parson at the inaugural Rural Health Symposium, sponsored by Centene, on November 2, 2021.
The Center will focus on bringing globally sourced, cutting-edge innovations into rural markets and communities to help address health and economic gaps, focusing major efforts to:
The 2021 Rural Health Symposium, the first for the Center, will feature tangible examples of innovations that can successfully impact rural health. The Center will expand and replicate these opportunities across Missouri.
Examples of innovative solutions sourced and curated by BioSTL specifically for rural communities include:
The launch of the Center – and its annual Symposium – will position Missouri and the Midwest region as a thought leader for innovation designed specifically to address the unique challenges rural communities face.
“Rural communities have experienced diminishing healthcare infrastructure, creating significant health disparities across rural communities. Working with Missouri’s largest economic engines of agriculture and healthcare and alongside rural communities and their leaders, BioSTL sees innovation and convening rural buying power as key levers for bringing a new model of health and economic vitality to rural areas and for bridging the urban-rural divide,” said Vijay Chauhan, GlobalSTL and Center for Rural Health Innovation Lead. “BioSTL is extending its global-scale innovation platform, developed by its GlobalSTL initiative, to rural communities to deploy rural-centric innovation to address their pressing challenges.”
“The health of all Missourians has been a major focus of my administration. Innovation in rural health promises to solve some of our rural communities’ most challenging health issues by providing new technologies, new ways of thinking, new processes, and new systems,” said Governor Mike Parson. “With health and economic success linked in so many ways, if we can improve the health of our rural residents, we can increase economic opportunity.”
Gov. Parson will deliver further remarks at the official launch of the new Center for Rural Health Innovation, culminating the inaugural Rural Health Symposium. Leaders from rural communities – from the domains of healthcare, business, community-based organizations, innovators, non-profit organizations, agriculture, workforce development, government, research and policy – will come together to share successful approaches to improving health and economic vitality through innovation.
The Symposium will focus on the goals of the Center – solving for major challenges rural communities face: healthcare access and affordability, healthcare workforce and hospital capacity, affordable internet access, and the social drivers of health unique to rural communities.Objectives of the Rural Health Symposium include:
The full agenda lists all panels and speakers. Those interested in attending may register on Eventbrite.
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The Center for Rural Health Innovation becomes BioSTL’s third Center of Excellence, following the development of the Center for Defense Medicine and the Center for National Pandemic Resiliency.
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