KidsX Accelerator
Accelerate pediatric innovation
Accelerate pediatric innovation
Every year KidsX hospitals come together to prioritize a select set of focus areas they wish to solve using innovative solutions. The KidsX Accelerator’s unique reverse pitch model enables alignment between participating companies and KidsX hospitals at the onset of the program. Companies that address one or more of the following focus areas are encouraged to apply for the accelerator:
AI Automation solutions that support workforce optimization including data entry, documentation, clinical decision making, hospital operations, and patient insights extraction for pediatric hospitals
Care Journey Navigation and Triaging solutions for pediatric hospitals and emergency departments to support the patient and caregiver experience
Health Literacy tools to address social determinants of health for pediatric patients
Hospital at Home technologies to support early discharge and/or acute pediatric patients
Pediatric Mental & Behavioral Health planning, monitoring, and wraparound services
If you would like to get involved as a speaker or corporate partner for this accelerator or future ones, please contact us.
The ideal applicant is eager to learn and receive help from various business and healthcare experts and stakeholders in order to refine and test product-market fit. Applicants must be willing to work collaboratively with health systems to conduct research, co-develop products, or pilot test existing products based on mutually agreed upon use cases. We prefer early stage companies, especially seed stage companies with 12-18 months of runway.
We require that companies have full-time founders and at least an MVP or functional product. We will not accept idea-stage companies. We expect that founders will be actively engaged in the activities of the Accelerator, typically 5-12 hours per week.
Companies do not need to be exclusively focused on pediatrics. However, they must have a deep desire to serve the pediatric market in some way.
You are able to submit applications online from February 6 through March 15. The KidsX team will review all applications and notify the companies in April.
The process consists of application screening, interviews, reference checks, diligence, and pitch days to a panel of judges comprised of the KidsX team and KidsX Hospital Members. These application interviews will take place throughout March 2024. Due to the volume of applicants, we will not be able to provide individualized feedback to all that apply. The final cohort will be selected in early April.
KidsX member hospitals are all actively involved in interviewing and selecting the companies that will participate in the Accelerator. KidsX focuses on selecting strong founders, especially those who are willing to learn, incorporate feedback and work collaboratively.
KidsX also evaluates the product, the technical team, the potential business model(s), alignment with the problems on the KidsX focus areas, diversity of solution types, and overall traction in the market.
Time commitment differs per week based on programming and can be split amongst team members, but expect anywhere from 5-12 hours per week for curriculum, mentorship, stakeholder meetings, and pilot planning.
Additionally, startups will be asked to travel to 1-2 children’s hospitals to meet in person with key stakeholders to help push the piloting process along. More details will be shared when the final cohort is onboarded.
KidsX does not take any equity from participating companies and asks that participating companies offer a 90-day demonstration project to KidsX hospitals at no cost.
The 10-week accelerator is a blend of asynchronous activities and live virtual programming. Founders can expect to participate in required events, office hours, workshops, pitch days, networking opportunities, mentorship, and pilot planning sessions. In addition, a series of optional asynchronous content will also be made available to companies. On average, founders can expect to spend 5-12 hours per week, engaging with KidsX Accelerator activities during the multi-week program.
KidsX member hospitals participate with the desire to find a product that will help solve a strategically important problem for their hospital. However, pilots, trials, demonstration projects are not guaranteed for all participating companies. These projects are agreed upon during the Accelerator if the company and hospital mutually decide to work together.
For any questions about this accelerator, future programs, or how you can get involved, contact our Programs Lead – Bianca Riello at briello@chla.usc.edu.