Healthcare is personal. We are all one diagnosis away from being a patient. To a doctor, the relationship with a patient is one of the most sacred connections. To the patient, it is almost always a moment of anxiety and fear. As a family doctor, I’ve seen this moment of humanity so many times.
As the world battled the unprecedented global pandemic and health systems were seeing longstanding problems surface all at once (team member burnout, aging digital infrastructure, regulatory constraints, difficulty serving never-seen-before patient levels while keeping the lights on, more patients than caregiver capacity, to name a few), it became clear that we were at a crossroads.
Generational disruptions require new thinking and leadership, which led to the birth of Catalyst by Wellstar, the first-of-its-kind innovation and venture company built to revolutionize the way we address healthcare challenges through technology and innovation.
What sets Catalyst apart from other innovation companies or venture firms is that we’ve combined both within a large health system, providing a real-world test ground for our pilots along with capital to help them scale. At Catalyst, we operate on the thesis that not all healthcare problems will be solved by traditional healthcare solutions. This is why we actively seek solutions from other industries. By investing and collaborating with innovators from diverse fields, we can develop novel approaches that have been previously unexplored by health systems.
Another core tenet of Catalyst’s thesis is that those closest to the patient should be helping shape the problem statements so we can influence the products and solutions developed. The powerful insights from our Wellstar clinical team—which itself has a long history of innovation—drive both problem statements and solution development.
A great example of this is vflok, a company we created to revolutionize nurse scheduling through creating connection and community. This problem surfaced during the height of the pandemic but had long been a challenge. Through engaging our teams, we began to develop a thesis at how we might impact this problem. By embedding advanced machine learning models and generative AI into the scheduling workflow, vflok empowers nurses to create flexible, personalized schedules, reducing burnout and creating deeper connections with each other.
By continually pushing the boundaries of what’s possible, Catalyst is not just responding to the current needs of healthcare but proactively shaping the future of healthcare for patients, healthcare professionals, and communities. After all, this work isn’t just work. It’s about delivering on our mission.
