A recent grant awarded by the Oregon Innovation Council of Business Oregon, makes possible a feasibility study to help the Health Technology Collaborative (HTC) discover what is needed to create a healthcare specific “invention space” that will accelerate health technology development within the state of Oregon. The study has been broadly endorsed among Oregon’s tech sector, including letters of support on behalf of the HTC from the Portland Incubator Experiment, Oregon Bioscience Incubator, Oregon Translational Research and Development Institute, Portland Community College’s Science and Technology Division, and Intel’s IoT Group Health Business Unit.

McCoy Russell was pleased to participate in a focus group as part of the feasibility study. The HTC is utilizing these focus groups to connect with health technology leaders across the state of Oregon. Approximately 36% of these interviews have been conducted with women in tech and as a women-owned firm, we were happy to assist in providing additional expertise as to what will be needed to create this new healthcare specific “invention space.”

The Health Technology Inventor Space will be a lab-like facility where healthcare product innovators, practitioners, students and entrepreneurs can bring their ideas, questions or product prototypes to engage in iterative development. The lab will offer industry expertise, software tools, refinement capabilities, testing, and professional prototyping equipment that can ultimately decrease the time between iterations, ensure compatibility with regulatory and data standards, and allow for cross-platform device checking and graphical/human interface validation. 

From our standpoint, participating in forums such as these is an important investment. We have been listening to our Oregon clients, hearing what their friction points are in product development and what services they have had difficulty locating. By being a part of these conversations, we are better able to assist our clients in acquiring the resources they need to succeed, increasing their ability to develop the products they envision and thereby increasing the scope and value of each patent filing.