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DHI Accelerator Program

Overview

The Digital Health Initiative (DHI) has been charged with growing the digital health research portfolio at the University of Utah. The Digital Health Accelerator Program aims to accelerate DHI seed grant awardees and other promising digital health projects by providing DHI support of up to $50,000. 

As experts in digital health, we anticipate that some meritorious seed grants and other pilot projects will have overlooked important technical and organizational challenges that can jeopardize the strength, feasibility, and execution of their projects. By leveraging DHI expertise, investigators can avoid these pitfalls, leading to stronger follow-on grant proposals. To address this anticipated challenge, the DHI has created an auxiliary program known as the Accelerator Program, which will provide up to $50,000 in matching funds from the DHI’s budget in a partnership with Initiative leadership and the pilot project’s investigator team.  

Process

Digital health projects eligible for acceleration include seed grants and other promising pilot projects that may be generating preliminary data for large digital health grant applications (e.g., R01, R18, U01, U24, P grants).  For seed grants, the review process will be as described in the Request for Applications for that call. For other pilot projects, investigators may contact the DHI leadership seeking acceleration. Once promising projects have been identified, Initiative Senior Directors will evaluate projects for inclusion in the accelerator program. If selected for consideration, Senior Directors will reach out to the research team to determine if they would like to participate in the program and to identify the most effective way to accelerate the project. If the research team and the Senior Directors agree to leverage the accelerator program, the Initiative will coordinate the disbursement of funds to the appropriate party.  

Examples of Acceleration Support

We anticipate that acceleration needs for projects may include the following (note: we expect this list to grow as we meet with PIs/collaborators).  

IT expertise 

  • Creation of data interfaces for data currently residing outside of the EHR, or requiring manual data entry (e.g., wearable data, device data) 

  • Configuration of EHR to allow seamless clinical integration of project interventions 

  • Enabling Citrix Clinical Desktop environment to record EHR user sessions and allow in situ evaluation of user information needs and EHR-integrated digital interventions  

GApp Lab expertise 

  • Rapid user-center design methods 

  • Novel approaches such as gamification, virtual reality (VR), etc. 

ReImagine EHR expertise 

  • Feasibility of proposed interventions and study design 

  • Help navigating health system governance 

  • Technical guidance and support for developing enterprise-grade digital health tools and tool integration with Epic, MyChart and other clinical systems 

  • Guidance on digital health interoperability to ensure scalability of proposed interventions 

Program Budget

Each project will be eligible to be accelerated by up to $50,000 but may be approved for less than the full amount based on the project’s needs. Funds will be disbursed directly to relevant parties rather than being transferred to research teams. 

Interest Form

Please fill out the Digital Health Accelerator Interest Form with information about your potential project or idea and someone from DHI will be in contact with you.