Detroit’s Henry Ford Health System has announced a partnership between Henry Ford Innovations and two universities to improve the quality of life for people who are undergoing physical rehabilitation or suffering from disabilities that limit their mobility and/or ability to perform daily tasks. Henry Ford Innovations will be providing support to work done by Carnegie Mellon University’s Quality of Life Technology Center. That center, along with the University of Pittsburgh, is working to develop technology that will aid patient recovery and improve their everyday lives.
In return for providing its support to the QoLT Consortium, Henry Ford Innovations get “full collaboration benefits and technology transfer privileges” for the developments made by the group. That group includes graduate students specializing in areas such as rehabilitation science and assistive technology. QoLT includes futuristic-sounding engineering innovations like personal robots that can serve as “computerized coaches” during rehabilitation and also help patients perform daily tasks.
The developments made as part of this partnership could eventually lead to a much easier life for millions of people. According to the Centers for Disease Control, close to a quarter of the adults in this country have some type of disability. The most common include arthritis and back or spine problems, while the most frequently-reported physical limitations associated with these disabilities were walking for any distance and climbing stairs.
Henry Ford Innovations is reportedly the “first major health care provider” to lend its official support to the consortium. A spokesman for Henry Ford Health System called the partnership a “cornerstone of Henry Ford’s digital health strategy” that it hopes will lead to new solutions for “pressing health care problems.” When businesses go into new endeavors like this, particularly with organizations in other states, legal and regulatory issues can arise. That’s why it is essential to have a legal team who can handle those. That will allow the business to focus on the partnership and the positive outcomes it hopes to achieve.
Source: dbusiness.com, “Henry Ford Innovations Join Robotic Research at Carnegie Mellon” No author given, Jan. 24, 2014
