Ochsner Well being’s enterprise arm has launched the Ochsner Louisiana Innovation Fund, a $10 million fund for investments in Louisiana-based, early-stage well being corporations.
Ochsner operates 46 hospitals and greater than 370 well being and pressing care facilities throughout Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Gulf South. Its Linked Well being digital drugs program is caring for sufferers past its partitions. In 2023, Ochsner Well being cared for greater than 1.5 million folks from each state and 65 nations.
Ochsner Ventures stated the fund, in partnership with Louisiana Financial Improvement (LED) through the State Small Enterprise Credit score Initiative (SSBCI), will additional well being innovation, help native founders and companies, and catalyze financial growth that creates new jobs and prosperity for our communities.
Ochsner Ventures will handle this system and make fairness investments in enterprise and seed-stage well being corporations which are headquartered or have important operations in Louisiana.
The fund will collaborate with a community of ecosystem companions to establish corporations with compelling enterprise fashions and robust management groups whose improvements advance Ochsner’s strategic priorities of accelerating value-based care, digital transformation of care supply, and enhancing entry and group well being throughout the state.
“Supporting Louisiana entrepreneurs and companies is without doubt one of the some ways Ochsner is investing in Louisiana by each catalyzing innovation to drive financial growth and job progress and accelerating new options designed to enhance the well being of the communities we serve,” stated Aimee Quirk, chief company growth officer and CEO of Ochsner Ventures, in a press release. “Ochsner has a robust monitor document of partnering with innovators and different leaders within the entrepreneurial ecosystem to unravel healthcare challenges and we’re grateful to LED for recognizing our legacy of localized funding and our dedication to help financial growth by innovation.”
The Ochsner Louisiana Innovation Fund will make its first funding in Nest Well being, a value-based whole-family healthcare supplier headquartered in New Orleans. Co-founded by Rebekah Gee, M.D., former Secretary of Well being of Louisiana, and Rebecca Kavoussi, M.P.P., former president of Landmark Well being, Nest Well being offers mother and father and youngsters with complete medical, behavioral, and social care by home calls, digital care and 24/7 help. Since launching, its providers have turn out to be accessible at no further value to 1000’s of households lined by Medicaid within the New Orleans space.
“We’re thrilled that Ochsner is supporting our imaginative and prescient of bringing care to households, as a unit, beginning in Louisiana,” stated Gee in a press release. “Ochsner’s funding in Nest’s modern care mannequin reveals their dedication to enhancing well being fairness and delivering high quality care to our nation’s most weak communities. We’re proud to be partnered and sit up for the affect we are going to proceed to have collectively.”
